'Kicking the can': how Theresa May came to delay Brexit vote

Theresa May had long taken the decision to cancel the meaningful vote in parliament when she sent her troops out on the airwaves on Monday morning to insist that she would not do so.

Michael Gove was pressed on Radio 4’s Today programme on whether it was “definitely, 100%” going to happen. “Yes,” he said. Amber Rudd breezed past reporters on her way into Westminster, saying she “hoped” it would go ahead.

Yet the prime minister had already called cabinet ministers and the chief whip, Julian Smith, at the weekend to tell them she was reluctantly going to postpone the vote.

Most were agreeable when she told them her decision, though not all were convinced it would make a difference. Cabinet sources said it was clear from the calls that May had already made up her mind. “That was her opening gambit,” one said.

She was advised by a cabinet minister during the calls on Sunday that she should make a statement to the House of Commons, confirm it with a business statement and then announce she would return to European leaders to seek changes. Those were the events that eventually transpired.

Some had been urging a change of course for longer. “She listened, for once,” another cabinet source said.

Despite the emphatic denials from Downing Street, a ripple went round Westminster as journalists began to hear that a cabinet conference call would take place at 11.30am.

The official line was that it would be to discuss May’s calls over the weekend with European leaders: the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, the Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, as well as Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk.

Yet before the conference call, No 10 chief of staff Gavin Barwell confirmed to some cabinet ministers that they would be signing off the move to pull the vote.

Some cabinet ministers were uncomfortable with the decision. “Labour and Tory rebels need to be able to have their vote. They have taken strong views and they have to express them, and then we can move on,” a cabinet source said, adding they were unconvinced that the increased risk of no deal was a viable strategy.

Another cabinet source said that although there was “widespread support” on the call, there was some concern that pulling the vote would only delay the moment when MPs would inevitably have to “face up” to the real choices in front of them.

The timing of the conference call caused a dilemma for Downing Street, coming before a scheduled daily briefing that a No 10 spokesman holds with journalists at 11am. May’s deputy spokeswoman arrived as a fire alarm went off in the Palace of Westminster. Even then, minutes before the conference call, the spokeswoman held the line in a febrile House of Commons briefing room that the vote would go ahead.

Every cabinet minister joined the conference call, including a late-running Scottish secretary David Mundell. “The truth is, it seems most of Cabinet are pretty happy about her going back to Brussels,” one cabinet source said.

News that the vote was being pulled leaked within minutes and sources texted reporters to confirm the prime minister would make a statement to the Commons.

MPs arriving back from their constituencies on Monday morning, anticipating a historic week in parliament, were confronted by chaos. “People were absolutely livid,” one Tory Brexiteer said. “It’s no exaggeration to say that this is total contempt for MPs and for parliament.”

Many had saved carefully crafted speeches for the final days of debate, including several influential MPs such as ex-minister Nick Boles, the main Tory proponent of a Norway-style Brexit deal, and George Freeman, a former policy adviser to the prime minister, who planned to use his speech to call for a free vote.

May entered the Commons, flanked by David Lidington and Philip Hammond, who sat grim-faced, but nodding in unison as May confirmed the vote was off. Labour MPs shouted “Weak!” and “Chaos!”

The Speaker John Bercow’s face was incandescent as he intervened after Jeremy Corbyn’s response to the prime minister. He suggested the government had wasted the time of 164 MPs who had spoken in the debate over the past three days, calling it “deeply discourteous”.

To mumbles of approval, he said it would be “courteous, respectful and mature” to allow MPs to vote on whether to adjourn the debate, yet he admitted that it was possible for the government to refuse to move the rest of the debate, in effect cancelling the vote. That was the obvious choice.

Privately, most frontbenchers sounded weary but resigned after the confirmation came. “It’s the lesser of two evils, but I am getting extremely worried about the time pressures,” one minister said. Another was furious. “It’s daft! We are kicking the can down the road.”

Some suggested that cabinet ministers had urged the prime minister to pull the vote to protect their own interests. “You have to remember for a lot of cabinet ministers, this is about self-preservation,” one senior Tory source said.

“For Penny Mordaunt and Gavin Williamson, if they walk through that lobby to back this deal, they are done; that’s the end of their leadership prospects.”

Downing Street sources insisted the decision to delay had been taken extremely reluctantly. “Every time the prime minister has said the vote is going ahead, she meant it,” one source said. “She wasn’t lying. But it has become clear we were facing a massive defeat. There is no good option.”

However, there is no expectation of a swift resolution. Speaking to reporters as May faced another marathon session in front of MPs, the prime minister’s spokesman said: “The key point for us will be when we get the reassurances we need from the EU. We are obviously at the beginning of that process. The message we got is that [EU leaders] are open to looking at ways through this. Obviously we wouldn’t be going through this process if we didn’t think it was going to be achieved.”

Late in the afternoon, Brexiter MPs from the European Research Group convened a hasty meeting in a committee room in parliament.

Though the meeting was packed and the speeches inside loud and applauded, MPs seemed uncertain as they emerged. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the group’s chair, looked somewhat deflated. “Generally, we are just sad that the government is such a mess,” Rees-Mogg told reporters. “We are all good Tories and we want the government to be doing well but we are deeply concerned about the Brexit process. We have been told things that do not turn out to be true.”

Some Brexiter MPs have private concerns about whether all of their colleagues will be able to hold the line if the vote is pushed to the wire. “We are in the final stages now where we can start preparing properly for no deal,” one backbench Brexiter said. “I think we can make a success of no deal, or make a success of removing the prime minister and getting a new one - if we put our minds to it quickly. But if we get to January without doing either, we are really up shit creek. I think that’s the gamble she’s taking and it might work.”

Another Tory MP agreed but expressed frustration that many colleagues still held back from challenging the May’s leadership. “I mean, just how shambolic does it have to be for colleagues to write a letter?” the Tory fumed.

Rees-Mogg said the decision to defer was as good as a defeat. “I thought it was as humiliating for the government to lose the vote as to lose by 100,” he said. “For them to pull it, they must have thought they were going to lose by more.”