‘Get a deal or we’ll delay Brexit’ – May held to ransom by ministers
Prime Minister has until start of next week to scrap no-deal or members of her Cabinet vow to revolt
THERESA MAY has been warned by ministers she has five days in which to announce she will delay Brexit or she will face a mass rebellion that risks collapsing the Government.
Earlier this week, Amber Rudd, Greg Clark, David Gauke and David Mundell effectively challenged the Prime Minister to sack them by promising to support a backbench bid to take a no-deal exit from the EU off the table.
They warned Mrs May in a Downing Street meeting that as many as 22 members of the Government were prepared to vote for a backbench Bill that would force her to request an extension of Article 50.
The Daily Telegraph has been told that if the Prime Minister fails to seal a deal that she can put before Parliament on Monday or Tuesday, the only way she can avoid a revolt is by announcing a Brexit delay. “She knows what she needs to do,” one minister said.
“If she doesn’t take no deal off the table then Parliament will do it for her. We are not willing to stand by this time.
“She has to say publicly that she will formally request an extension of Article 50.”
Writing in the Daily Mail, Ms Rudd, Mr Gauke and Mr Clark said Eurosceptic MPS risked causing Brexit to be postponed because Parliament would step in to stop a no-deal Brexit.
“If we cannot achieve a parliamentary breakthrough in the next few days, the country will face a choice. We could crash out on March 29 or we could try to leave with a deal at a later date,” they said. “If there is no breakthrough in the coming week, the balance of opinion in Parliament is clear – that it would be better to seek to extend Article 50 and delay our date of departure rather than crash out of the European Union on March 29.
“It is time that many of our Conservative parliamentary colleagues in the ERG recognised that Parliament will stop a disastrous no-deal Brexit on March 29. If that happens, they will have no one to blame but themselves for delaying Brexit.”
Mr Gauke, the Justice Secretary, called on all Conservative MPS to back a deal that would allow Britain to leave at the end of March.
“If they don’t do that there is a real risk of a delay in Brexit happening,” he told The Telegraph.
Meanwhile, there is mounting speculation about the Prime Minister’s future. Cabinet ministers privately believe that if Britain leaves the EU in March, she should quit after the local elections in May to allow a new leader to deliver the next stages of Brexit.
On Thursday, Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General, and Stephen Barclay, the Brexit Secretary, travelled to Brussels, where they presented Michel Barnier, the EU’S chief Brexit negotiator, with a draft “legal codicil”.
The text, known as a joint interpretative instrument, is designed to ensure that there is a time limit on the Irish backstop – the plan which would keep the UK in a customs union with the EU to prevent a hard border.
Mr Cox has previously warned that, as it currently stands, the backstop would last indefinitely.
The Telegraph understands that while the meeting with Mr Barnier was promising, progress was limited. Mr Barnier told a French radio station yesterday he was now “more worried than before” over the state of Brexit talks.
The Prime Minister will fly to Sharm el-sheikh in Egypt tomorrow to attend an Eu-arab summit where she hopes to win support for changes to the Brexit deal. However, Remainer ministers and Tory MPS want to support a backbench amendment that will force her to request an extension of Article 50 if she fails to secure a deal by March 13.
Five ministers are also considering backing an amendment from Labour backbenchers that would make her put her deal to a second referendum.
It came as it was claimed some Government departments had switched from planning for no-deal to preparing for a two-year delay. One source said the about-turn had happened in recent days, adding: “Nobody knows what on earth Theresa May’s thinking is or what she is actually going to do, so it seems the Civil Service is now planning for all eventualities.”
Lord Howard, the former Tory leader, rejected calls for a delay and insisted fears about a no-deal departure from the EU had been “exaggerated”.