True hell for the Tories is a Brexit deal that destroys May’s successor

Cabinet is waking up to the likely consequences of the PM’S plans – she may not survive beyond Christmas

The atmosphere of the 1922 Committee has never been a guide to the mood of Conservative MPS. It’s an odd name given to a regular meeting of backbenchers, held in a large room in Parliament with the press gathered outside the door. Hence the theatrics. The banging of tables and walls, the loud shouts of support for a Prime Minister: all allow politicians to pretend to their leader (and each other) that they’re good, loyal souls. So the cheers for Theresa May this week were fairly meaningless. Her position remains precarious and she may yet be gone by Christmas.

The threat comes more from the Cabinet than Conservative backbenchers. Ministers have gone along with her Chequers plan for Brexit without much enthusiasm, seeing it as a first step that could be improved later on.

But Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General, has warned that the second step would be harder than they realise. Whatever Mrs May signs in Brussels, he says, will become an international treaty – so changing it could mean a two- or three-year legal battle. The Brexit talks might seem easy by comparison.

Mr Cox made this point to Cabinet colleagues this week, in one of his Brian Blessed-style booming speeches. Mrs May is proposing to agree Brexit money now and leave a lot of the other details to be agreed over the next two years. She’d also promise that, whatever happens, Northern Ireland would stay under the EU’S remit – for the trading of goods, at least.

Mr Cox told his colleagues that Dublin wants Mrs May’s deal because it thinks the arrangements are irrevocable. Mrs May says they are revocable. “Both of these things cannot be true,” he said in Cabinet. He compared the outcome of Mrs May’s deal to one of the circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno.

He apologised for speaking in such terms, but said the point needed to be understood. After all, the December deal with the EU was based on such a misunderstanding: British officials thought they’d offered meaningless assurances on Northern Ireland (the so-called backstop) which turned out to be not just meaningful but legally binding.

Mr Cox has made it his personal mission not to let such confusion reign again. It’s not that he’s an avowed Brexiteer, but he believes the office he holds obliges him to tell the blunt truth about Mrs May’s deal. And call an Inferno Brexit by its name.

In another era, an attorney general would be a shill, expected to offer legal justification to whatever the prime minister blunders into. But Mr Cox is different. The name he chose for the legal practice he set up – Thomas More Chambers – suggests an admiration for lawyers who defy the government no matter what the cost. Before this week’s Cabinet meeting he offered a private briefing to Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary. Which is why the stakes are now so high.

Although he voted Remain, Mr Hunt is now wondering whether Mrs May’s deal might be worse than a “no-deal” Brexit. His concern is simple: what if Mr Cox is right and the Tories do end up in a circle of hell, with Mrs May having skedaddled? As one minister puts it: “We’d have signed away the money, signed away Northern Ireland: we’d have given away our collateral. We’d have the remaining Brexit terms dictated to us by the EU. Her successor, whoever it is, would be destroyed. This would not get past Parliament.”

But this last point – parliamentary approval – is the biggest Tory fear. If Mrs May does come back with a half-deal from Brussels that’s certain to destroy her successor, Labour MPS might vote for it just to guarantee the Conservative agony – thereby guaranteeing its passage through Parliament.

The Chequers deal is, anyway, close to the customs union that Labour wants. It’s always rash to imagine that Jeremy Corbyn would behave in any rational way, but there is a clear case for him to support a Brexit deal that would be like pressing a slow-motion “destruct” button on the Conservative Party.

Even Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, has stopped telling colleagues that he thinks Chequers is a good idea. He says now that it’s a “price worth paying” to avoid what he regards as the calamity of no-deal. Greg Clark, the business secretary, is also of this opinion. But Dominic Raab, the Brexit Secretary, is lining up behind Mr Hunt – which is why he is desperate to improve Mrs May’s offer, and spend more time in Brussels explaining the political problems.

At the Cabinet meeting this week, three requests were made of No 10. First, that Mr Cox delivers a presentation on the legal implications of whatever Mrs May agrees in Brussels. Next, that the chief whip explains how it would get through Parliament and whether Corbyn’s support would be needed. Finally, and most importantly, that the Cabinet is allowed to vote on her deal.

Mrs May is not keen on any of this, and understandably. She wants as few hurdles as possible. If she takes her deal straight to Parliament, there might be only one method of stopping it: to remove her from office.

No one is talking about this option with any enthusiasm. There is no consensus behind a successor, and no guarantee that it could be done quickly.

To change leader would probably mean abandoning the Brexit talks, because there would not be enough time for a new prime minister to negotiate a new deal. Which, while challenging, will be seen by quite a few Tories as preferable to an inescapable, circle-of-hell Brexit created by a Prime Minister who had no intention of sticking around for the consequences.

There are many ways to avoid all of this. Mrs May could demand a standard break clause where the UK could withdraw from a transition deal (and take the money) at any point. She might agree to offer her Cabinet a vote.

But she might also proceed as planned and bet that, for all their talk, her detractors would not be organised enough to stop her. It’s always dangerous to test the Tory party’s capacity for regicide, but it might be Mrs May’s final gamble.