Theresa May is gambling with her Cabinet – and thinks she will win

The PM’S Brexit model is a red rag to Leavers, but she expects she would survive a leadership challenge

To show her Cabinet that she means business, Theresa May has introduced a house rule for ministers gathering at her Chequers summit today: they must hand over their mobile telephones and “smart watches” at the door. They will get them back only at 10pm, by which time she hopes they will have agreed to her new plan for leaving the European Union.

She is suspicious that too many details of the talks have been leaking, and wishes white smoke to emerge late in the evening. She has tried seeking consensus, and failed. Her plan, today, is to lay down her new idea, then dare her Cabinet to defy her.

Until yesterday, most of her colleagues expected today’s meeting to fizzle out into nothing. One Cabinet member told me that he expects it to be another serving of “Theresa’s Brexit fudge” – referring to a Tracey Ullman BBC1 comedy sketch where the impersonated Prime Minister asks: “Will you buy it? Will anyone?”

In fact, her real proposal will detail something rather more specific. It’s called the Single Standards Model, which she is selling not just as a third way but as the only way to unblock the Brexit talks.

Some classified documents were sent around last night, saying that Mrs May’s new idea involves a “common rulebook for all goods” and farm produce. Britain would sign a treaty agreeing to “ongoing harmonisation with EU rules” – effectively staying in the single market for goods, but not services.

As the document admits, this would make it tough for Britain to import more American food – all but ruling out a free trade deal with the US. This is a red rag to the Brexiteers. Donald Trump is visiting next week: does it really make sense to spurn his offer of a trade deal before he arrives?

Until now, Mrs May has been conciliatory. But she is braced for resignations and, I understand, she has even taken soundings from a party grandee about how she might survive a leadership challenge.

How big a majority, she asked, does a Prime Minister need to win a confidence vote? By one solitary vote, came the reply. It doesn’t matter if even a third of the party want you gone: if you have just over half of MPS, you can stay. She said that she fully agreed.

So if her enemies wish to move against her, she has a message: she stands ready. They can try. But they’d have to be sure to finish her off.

There aren’t many Brexiteers who could command a majority of MPS in a move against the Prime Minister, especially given that most Tories supported Remain.

Under party rules, MPS would have to wait a year to table a second confidence motion in the leader, so a botched attempt may, in fact, underline her security. The drama would be embarrassing, yes. But so is being unable to bring the Cabinet to a decision over Brexit with just nine months to go.

And there is no talk, yet, of mounting a leadership putsch. At Chequers today, David Davis is preparing to make his own counterproposal: a Brexit plan that defends the “red lines” that Mrs May described in happier times.

So no to the customs union, no to the single market, no to the European Court of Justice.

She will say that her new idea does all of this: he’ll disagree. But she might not even call a vote. Her plan is to reach a consensus – she doesn’t say how – and then find some Brexiteer ministers willing to promote this tomorrow. Most have replied that they have unmovable plans (most involving football), but a few have been more receptive.

The Brexiteers have still not agreed just how far they want to push it, especially as some are already thinking about a leadership bid. They expect Mrs May to go after Britain leaves the EU in March next year, and much of their behaviour now can be explained by what they expect to happen then.

Sajid Javid’s debut as Home Secretary – securing more visas for high-skilled workers, securing a review into the medicinal use of cannabis oil – has impressed party activists. He is coming across as a man of action, in a Cabinet otherwise marked by indecision and drift. A Eurosceptic who voted Remain who is, as a result, loved by neither side. But not hated either – which, in Conservative Party leadership stakes, counts for a lot.

His most likely rival, at this stage, is seen to be Michael Gove. A Leaver, but one who is, now, strikingly open- follow Fraser Nelson on Twitter @Frasernelson read more at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion minded about what form Brexit might take, even when it might happen. The understanding is that he would create his unity ticket with the backing of two Remainers: Nicky Morgan, one of the leading Tory rebels, and Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader.

Some Cabinet members will never forgive him for betraying Boris Johnson two years ago (“Michael gave us Theresa,” one told me recently, “And, even worse, Philip Hammond”). But given that 48 Tory MPS voted for him last time, days after he wielded the dirk, it might be enough to get into the final two.

But all such talk, at the moment, envisages the summer of 2019: no one is ready to move now. And most Brexiteers think that it would be madness to do so before Brexit.

This is what is giving Mrs May such confidence. When she met Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday, her plan was to say that the Chequers deal she hopes to achieve really will be her best and final offer. And that if she does win her Cabinet’s backing for her Single Standards Model, she badly needs it to be welcomed from Berlin – to prove to her party that the sacrifice, the compromise, and, perhaps, the resignations, really are worth it.

The ministers who have been called in for talks with the Prime Minister recently say that she looks happier, more relaxed and more confident than for some time. It is her critics who are looking a bit lost and uncoordinated, which is why it feels that there will be no better day for a final push on Brexit. Then see who dares to push back.

For the first time since calling a general election last year, Mrs May is ready to gamble. And hope that, this time, she gets a better result.