Battle for Brexit

THE Tory Party was last night engulfed by bitter Brexit in-fighting over the threat of a No Deal departure.

The Prime Minister will travel to an EU summit in Egypt tomorrow as she tries to secure last-ditch concessions from Brussels on her deal.

But ahead of a critical week, the party is at war over whether to take control of the negotiations out of her hands to prevent No Deal.

Dozens of backbenchers yesterday warned Mrs May they were now prepared to rebel in a crunch vote, expected on Wednesday, on a motion to extend Article 50 and avoid No Deal.

And in today’s Mail three Cabinet ministers – Amber Rudd, David Gauke and Greg Clark – suggest they could defy the PM unless there is a breakthrough in Parliament in the next few days.

Hardline Eurosceptics have reacted furiously and are said to be threatening to ‘effectively end the Government’ if any move to delay Brexit succeeds and we don’t leave the EU on March 29.

Last night, it was reported that some Cabinet ministers had privately warned that Mrs May must stand down after the local elections in May to allow a new leader to deliver the next stage of Brexit negotiations.

The Guardian claimed that senior figures in government had suggested they wanted the PM to leave shortly after the first phase of the Brexit talks – or risk being defeated in a confidence vote at the end of the year.

Tomorrow, Mrs May will travel to Sharm El Sheikh to discuss Brexit on the sidelines of an EU summit with Arab leaders, and will sit down with EU Council President Donald Tusk.

But one Whitehall source said there had been no ‘white smoke moment’ and it was ‘unlikely’ anything would emerge at the weekend.

With no sign of a resolution, Downing Street officials are braced for a brutal row next week when MPs will vote on plans to force Mrs May to delay leaving the EU. An amendment, proposed by Labour’s Yvette Cooper, would attempt to seize control of the parliamentary agenda and pass a law requiring Mrs May to ask the EU for an extension if no deal is done by the middle of next month. Members of the Brexit Delivery Group have written to her to demand a free vote on the amendment.

Tory MP Andrew Percy, who backed Brexit, said dozens of Tories would be prepared to rebel to stop No Deal and demanded hardliners such as Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg start ‘living in the real world’.

He accused arch-Brexiteers in the European Research Group of ‘playing games’ and warned they risked Brexit not happening at all.

‘Some of my colleagues have got to recognise that the game they have thus far been playing with regards to this whole process is not going to end well for them and could potentially end with the delaying of – perhaps even no Brexit – which some of us have spent a lot of our parliamentary and political careers campaigning for,’ he told the BBC’s Today programme. ‘Everybody knows there are about 500 MPs in Parliament who don’t want a No Deal Brexit and only about 100 at best who probably do. I know some of my fellow Brexiteers are in total denial about the parliamentary arithmetic but it is time for people to start living in the real world.’

One ERG figure warned there would be ‘carnage’ if Mrs May moved the Brexit date. ‘If she said she’d extend Article 50, there’d be 20-plus MPs who would just take their bat and ball home: No domestic legislation, no Brexit legislation, they just wouldn’t be showing up any more,’ they said. ‘It would effectively end the government… Mrs May has been absolutely firm for months and months we leave on the March 29. If she went back on that, there would be carnage.’

Eurosceptics in the Cabinet urged Mrs May not to give in to the threats and whip Tory MPs against the Cooper amendment.

One said: ‘We have got to try and vote Cooper down. We shouldn’t just roll over and accept it. People don’t seem to realise that by voting for it they would be reducing our chances of getting a deal.

‘If you ask for an extension to Article 50 it will be horrendous. Europe never does a deal until the last minute.’ Allies of Mrs May said the PM was trying to find a way to ‘persuade everyone to get down off the ledge’ and preserve enough unity to get a deal over the line.

‘The minute you try to extend Article 50, the ERG will go fully mental’ a source said.

There are also fears Cabinet resignations over No Deal could lead to more MPs quitting.

‘Hardliners should live in real world’