Brexit latest: Theresa May pleads with Cabinet for support as Brussels official boasts of EU keeping 'all the controls'

Theresa May fought to stave off Cabinet resignations today with a candid admission that her Brexit deal falls short of all Britain’s demands but was the best the country can get.

The Prime Minister was making a passionate appeal to ministers to swallow their doubts and support the 460-page withdrawal agreement “in the national interest” and to “deliver on the 2016 referendum”.

But her battle to rally MPs and ministers was badly undermined by the leak of a memo in Brussels in which a senior Brussels negotiator, Sabine Weyand, boasted that the deal meant the EU “will retain all the controls” over which rules Britain will be obliged to follow in future.

Boris Johnson said the leak had exposed the true nature of the agreement, tweeting: “Cabinet must live up to its responsibilities & stop this deal”

A senior source said Mrs May’s message was that the deal delivers control over borders and laws, while protecting jobs and the unity of the UK.

“These proposals are in the national interest,” said the source. “They have been tough negotiations, over many many months. You cannot get everything you want in any negotiation.”

Mrs May met at least six Cabinet ministers in private to assuage doubts ahead of this afternoon’s Cabinet meeting, which was scheduled to last three hours.

She appeared to have succeeded in keeping the biggest beasts on board - but several ministers were holding their cards close to their chests, including Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey, an ardent Brexiteer. Some others were not ruling out resigning in the next few weeks if serious concerns about the Irish border backstop cannot be satisfied.

However, Cabinet unity was only one of Mrs May’s worries as major blocs of MPs moved hard against backing the deal in a future Commons vote.

Mrs May’s DUP allies stepped up their attacks on the deal, emphatically ruling out their support for such “a humiliation”. The party’s chief whip Sir Jeffrey Donaldson warned that his party “don’t fear a general election”, implying they were willing to topple the Government.

Mark Francois, a vice chairman of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s European Research Group bloc of at least 40 Tories, hinted Mrs May would be forced to stand down if necessary to block her deal.

“For a Prime Minister to lose a fundamental vote on a crunch issue of policy in the House of Commons is distinctively sub-optimal,” he said.

The former armed forces minister added: “If the Prime Minister persists on this course, and if the officers, if you like, in the Cabinet go with it, then it will be down to us, the backbenchers, the ‘poor bloody infantry’ of the Conservative Party to stop it and we will.”

Mrs May saw six members of the Cabinet who have expressed concern for one-to-one talks at Downing Street last night and this morning: Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox and, finally this morning, International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt.

Ms Mordaunt, who spent half an hour with the PM, was seen as the most likely of the six to resign, while colleagues said there was “a question mark” over a tense-looking Mr Raab.

What's next? The fate of the deal - and Theresa May herself

A series of Commons votes will be needed to settle the fate of Theresa May’s deal — and the fate of the PM herself. And the precise sequencing of divisions could make a difference to whether her Government stands or falls.

“The deck chairs will move around after each vote,” said one veteran parliamentarian, alluding to the sinking of the Titanic.

Jeremy Corbyn’s aim is to trigger a general election by voting down the deal and forcing a confidence vote. But hardline Brexiteers say they and the DUP will “stand firm” to stop that. If Mr Corbyn’s hopes are dashed, Labour frontbenchers such as Sir Keir Starmer will urge him to get behind a second referendum.

Remainers such as Tory Dominic Grieve and Labour’s Chuka Umunna are setting a People’s Vote as their priority, opposing Mrs May’s deal on grounds it is “infinitely worse” than staying in the EU. Some Tories are advising Mrs May to stage a debate on a second referendum early, to help clear the decks. But if the deal is voted on first and is derailed, support for a People’s Vote would grow — and some ultra-Brexiteers may reluctantly go back to Mrs May to avoid any risk of the 2016 referendum being reversed.

One ex-minister believes the deal will have to be voted on twice after a change of wording. The chairs will be sliding all over the slippery decks — with no guarantee that HMS May can limp into harbour.

Both were said to have endured “bone-crushing pressure” to quit from the hardline European Research Group, including texts and phone calls.

Ms Leadsom was described as “relaxed” by allies. Doorstepped on her way to read the documents this morning, she told Good Morning Britain she was “extremely optimistic”. She said: “I’ve had a good conversation with the Prime Minister and I’m looking at the details of the deal today and I’m extremely optimistic that we’ll have a good deal, but I’m looking at the details today.”

Mr Gove was said by allies to be dismayed by details of the document, including the lack of a reliable escape route from a bad backstop, but he was thought unlikely to resign today.

Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, told allies he would back the deal both to avoid no-deal and to prevent Brexit being halted. Mr Hunt, although described as “despondent” by one source, was said to be rally to Mrs May’s side.

Esther McVey, the Work and Pensions Secretary who is seen as a leading critic, refused to endorse the deal until said she would make up her mind after reading the documents this morning. “I’m just going to read all the papers now,” she told reporters.

Mr Hun t and Mr Grayling were both tight-lipped as they left No 10.

Business leader welcomed the prospect of a deal. Juergen Maier, UK chief executive of German engineering firm Siemens, called for a calm analysis of the deal on offer.

He told Today: “My gut feeling is that we need to get behind it and we need to make this deal work because what we need is certainty.

“It looks like to me that this is the only deal in town, so I think it’s better to get behind it - maybe fine tune it a little bit - and make it work. That will be good for British manufacturing.”

As she headed for London, Arlene Foster, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, warned of “worrying times” as her party’s MPs vowed to block the proposed “divorce” deal in Parliament.

She told Sky News: “It’s a question of whether we’re separating the union - whether we are dealing with the United Kingdom in a way that leaves us adrift in the future.

“As the leader of unionism in Northern Ireland I’m not about to agree to that.”

The party’s chief whip Sir Jeffrey Donaldson stressed that that the DUP “don’t fear a general election”, when asked whether killing the deal would risk Jeremy Corbyn, a long-term supporter of a united Ireland.

He said: “This deal has the potential to lead to the break-up of the UK.

“That is not something we can support.

“It’s not about who is prime minister, it’s not about who governs the country, it’s about the constitutional and economic integrity of the UK, that is fundamental for us.”

DUP Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson was more hardline, tweeting: “We will not be voting for this humiliation!”

Former Foreign Secretary Lord Hague warned that a second referendum, if one was held, threatened to be “the most divisive and bitter political conflict in this country in 100 years, and very economically damaging”.

He also told the DUP and Leavers that if they block Mrs May’s deal they risk losing Brexit.

“If they vote down a deal because they are not happy with the details, well, the consequences may be that Brexit never happens,” he said.