Is her departure price she’ll have to pay?

THERESA May will have to set out a timetable for her resignation in order to get her Brexit deal through, Tory MPs warned yesterday.

The Prime Minister’s former policy chief, George Freeman, became the first MP to break cover and suggest that a promise of her resignation may be the only way to persuade Eurosceptic MPs to back her deal.

Eurosceptic MPs have warned privately for weeks that they could not contemplate allowing the Prime Minister and her chief Brexit adviser, Olly Robbins, to negotiate the second phase of the Brexit talks which will set the UK’s long-term relationship with the EU.

Yesterday Mr Freeman, a Remainer, said: ‘This chaos can’t continue. We need an orderly Brexit on March 2 . If, to get the votes for that, the PM has to promise that she will go after the Withdrawal Treaty is secure, to allow a new leader to reunite the country and oversee the next stage, she should.’

Peter Bone, a persistent critic of the PM’s deal, confirmed to the Daily Mail that a promise from Mrs May to go might persuade him and other Brexiteer MPs to back her deal.

Downing Street said Mrs May had not discussed her departure. Asked about Mr Freeman’s comments, her official spokesman said: ‘The Prime Minister is absolutely determined to deliver on the will of the British people.’ But, privately, allies concede that she might have to consider resignation if it was the price of getting her deal through.

Mr Freeman’s intervention came as ministers piled pressure on Attorney General Geoffrey Cox to tweak his legal advice on Mrs May’s deal in the hope of winning the support of Eurosceptics and the DUP in a third vote on the deal, expected next week.

He is said to be ‘updating’ it to include his view that the UK could withdraw unilaterally from the Irish backstop if it is seen to undermine the Good Friday Agreement.