Sharm offensive as PM tries to win EU support

THERESA May faces a crucial week in her leadership that could define the shape of the country for years to come.

Her idea of a good holiday is walking with her husband Philip in the hills of Snowdonia – not jetting off to a Red Sea resort.

But the PM is going to Egypt’s Sharm El Sheikh on a mission to secure a diplomatic breakthrough that can prevent a constitutional crisis.

Mrs May will grab EU leaders and urge them to give her the concessions she needs to get her Brexit deal through Parliament.

To stand a chance of winning a Commons vote she needs to convince Brexit champions there is no risk that “backstop” arrangements to avoid a hard border in Ireland will lead to the UK getting trapped in a customs union.

It is not only Brexiteers she needs to worry about.

She has good reason to fear that ministers will rebel on Wednesday and back a plan by Labour’s Yvette Cooper and the Conservatives’ Oliver Letwin that could result in Britain’s departure from the EU being postponed if there is no deal in place by the middle of next month.

There is always the threat of more defections. Trying to get EU leaders to agree on a way forward is hard enough, but there is the danger that Tory divisions will erupt into full-blown civil war.

Right at the moment when Labour is in turmoil over antiSemitism, the decades-long battle over Europe could rip apart the party of Churchill.

It will anger Mrs May that she has to devote so much time and energy to party management when she is trying to wring a deal on the backstop out of the EU.

Mrs May will need to assure pro-EU MPs she is paying as much attention to them as Brexiteers. This all serves an important purpose.

The EU’s senior officials will not agree to Mrs May’s demands if they conclude there is no way she can get a deal passed by a factionridden Parliament.