Theresa May’s premiership is under increasing pressure after a week of shifting Brexit policies, in which she raised the prospect of a no-deal Brexit on March 29 only to accept an offer from EU leaders that leaves open the chance of an extended delay to the UK’s exit.
Some Conservative MPs and civil servants have indicated the UK prime minister will have to resign if she again fails to win parliamentary approval for her withdrawal deal next week. One cabinet minister said: “If she loses the vote next week, I can’t see how she could carry on.”
A Downing Street official said: “I don’t think parliament is going to vote for any deal . . . It’s like she’s given up inside.”
Mrs May has faced repeated threats to her leadership since the Tories’ disappointing performance in the 2017 general election. However, she cannot be formally challenged until this December after party rebels failed to oust her before Christmas.
Thursday’s European Council summit, where EU leaders proposed delaying Brexit until at least April 12, did not appear to have improved the prime minister’s domestic fortunes. Nick Boles, a Conservative MP, told the BBC it was a “pretty sorry situation when a couple more weeks is something we should be grateful for”.
Divisions within the Conservative party have deepened since Mrs May made a televised address late on Wednesday in which she criticised MPs for playing “political games” and implied she was ready to take the UK out of the EU without a deal.
Julian Smith, the Tory chief whip, has described the statement as “appalling” in conversations with Tory MPs.
Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 committee of backbenchers, told the Financial Times on Friday he had met Mrs May earlier this week but declined to say what they discussed.
Ben Bradley, a Conservative Eurosceptic MP, said he told Mrs May during a meeting on Wednesday that she should resign.
“MPs have been saying it for months,” he told the FT. “This is why I had to say it to her face because I’m never convinced these messages get through.”
One Tory MP who voted for Mrs May’s deal, said: “Every single person I speak to in my party is saying she needs to go — and she needs to go yesterday.” Another Conservative MP said: “We were all encouraging each other to contact Brady . . . It’s been open talk in the tea rooms . . . Anyone else would have gone by now.”
The prime minister tried to mend fences with MPs after the European Council, saying she understood they had “difficult jobs to do” and that she was “very clear” she would “work with the House [of Commons] on how to proceed”. But control of events could be slipping from her hands.
John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, will rule whether she can bring her deal back for a third vote in parliament; he has vowed to block it if it is not substantially changed. A Number 10 spokesperson argued that the situation had changed since the last meaningful vote 10 days ago.
The EU announced several assurances on the Irish backstop in Strasbourg on the eve of the second vote on March 12.
Downing Street now claims that the “approval” of those assurances by the European Council this week amounts to a substantial change.
Separately, 18 MPs, including the Conservatives Mr Boles and Oliver Letwin, and Labour’s Hilary Benn, have launched a fresh move to take control of the parliamentary agenda.
They have proposed an amendment to a government motion on Monday setting out a scheme for MPs to vote on different Brexit options on Wednesday. MPs could also use parliamentary time to call on the government to negotiate a longer Brexit extension.
Kwasi Kwarteng, a Brexit minister, suggested on Friday that the government would allow free votes if indicative votes were put to the Commons. He told MPs: “If the House is being asked to decide a way forward, it would be surprising if those votes were not free votes.”
Number 10 said the government had already committed itself to letting parliament hold a process “to find a way forward”, but would not clarify how this would work in practice next week.
