Yahoo News Theresa May maintains carry-on-regardless Brexit strategy
It was the day that Theresa May was meant to face a full-blown cabinet revolt and a move by parliament to take control of Brexit.
But it soon became clear the anti-May plotters in the cabinet had bottled a direct confrontation. “No one actually dealt with the leadership issue,” one cabinet source said. “They didn’t even skirt around it.”
Neither did the cabinet come up with a strategy to deal with parliament’s efforts to force a series of votes on plan B for Brexit, leaving May to pursue her own favourite formula: ignore them and carry on regardless.
The prime minister began the morning with an emergency cabinet meeting, sitting around a table with colleagues who are openly campaigning to be her successor – including Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove – while others are scheming to actively replace her with her deputy, David Lidington, as a caretaker leader.
According to people present, she simply ploughed on with her intention to hold a third vote on her deal this week. There was once again no clarity about what she would back if this failed: no deal, allowing parliament to shape a softer Brexit or another public vote?
Cabinet ministers lined up to express their own views and then brief them to the press moments later once the meeting had broken up.
Leadership hopefuls Hunt, Sajid Javid and Liz Truss sided with the traditional leavers Chris Grayling, Andrea Leadsom, Liam Fox and Penny Mordaunt to prefer no deal over allowing parliament to move towards a policy that could kill Brexit. One Brexit-supporting cabinet source even claimed they had the majority with “12 on our side”.
Another cabinet source said Hunt had even wanted to delay the meaningful vote until close to 12 April in order to put pressure on Labour MPs into supporting the deal for fear of leaving without an agreement, but that was not backed by those cabinet ministers who want to take no deal off the table.
On the other side, Greg Clark, the business secretary, spoke up in favour of indicative votes to allow MPs to find a consensus for another form of Brexit “in the national interest” rather than the Conservative party’s interests, infuriating the leavers who felt their motives were being impugned.
Mordaunt, the development secretary, highlighted the gilets jaunes movement in France as an example of the consequences of ignoring public feeling by retreating from the Brexit they voted for. And Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, said the consequences of ceding control to parliament via indicative votes could well be an election.
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Despite the sense of crisis, the meeting broke up with no conclusion or any move against the prime minister, leading one person backing Boris Johnson’s campaign to roll his eyes at the “jellyfish in grey suits” who complain about May but refuse to act.
Having survived the morning as prime minister, May was still hoping she might have won round more MPs to back her Brexit deal, allowing her meaningful vote to be held on Tuesday. But she went straight into a phone call with Arlene Foster, the Democratic Unionist party leader, which sources said “did not go well”.
She then met Jeremy Corbyn, raising the prospect that his party could back the withdrawal agreement – which Labour has no problem with – without the political declaration – which it does not back. However, this was given short shrift.
But mid afternoon, the prime minister was forced to begin her statement to the House of Commons with an acknowledgement that she still did not have the votes to put her Brexit deal to parliament on Tuesday but would try again later in the week.
Soft Brexiters were momentarily cheered when she appeared to rule out leaving the EU without a deal unless parliament gave its explicit consent. One leaver Tory MP, Crispin Blunt, reacted with fury, saying the prime minister had “put the final torpedo into a real Brexit [which] represents the most shameful surrender by a British leader since Singapore in 1942”.
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But she retreated within the hour, saying she had not taken no deal off the table and it remained the default if parliament did not pass her withdrawal agreement.
With paralysis and obfuscation gripping the government, it remained for a cross-party group led by former Tory minister Oliver Letwin and Labour’s Hilary Benn to put forward a plan for MPs to vote for their preferred form of plan B for Brexit.
The prime minister told MPs that any indicative votes passed by parliament showing a preference for a Norway-style Brexit, revocation of article 50 or a second referendum would not be considered binding by the government.
“I must confess that I am sceptical about the process,” she said, arguing it would yield “contradictory outcomes or no outcome at all” and set an unfortunate precedent that would “overturn the balance of our democratic institutions”.
However, MPs decided they wanted to express their views on alternatives anyway, backing the Letwin amendment in favour of indicative votes by 329 to 302.
There were signs that some Brexit-supporting backbenchers were growing increasingly rattled by parliament asserting its power and the visible public campaigns for a second referendum or revocation of article 50. In the Commons, one former holdout, Anne Main, urged May to put her withdrawal agreement to a vote again if a no-deal Brexit was no longer an option.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the European Research Group, told a meeting of the group he would now back May’s deal if the DUP were on board and Daniel Kawczynski made a similar argument. The loudest thumping on the desk came after an emotional speech by the DUP’s Sammy Wilson railing against the deal, saying it could see Northern Ireland separated from Britain under the terms of the backstop.
But MPs leaving the room were in anxious disagreement about the path ahead. “We have got to make them see sense and see that we could lose Brexit forever if we vote this down,” one MP said.
Another said they did not feel now was the moment to cave. “If we give in now, we will never know what we could have achieved,” another said. “I am appalled by it all and disgusted and the British people are never going to forgive us.”
A meeting of the senior Tory hardliners who saw May at Chequers on Sunday – widely mocked for their new nickname as the Grand Wizards of Brexit – also reportedly broke up with their strategy undecided.
Their key goal is for May to stand down for the next stage of Brexit negotiations if they are to vote for her deal. But she will not yet set a timetable for her departure for fear of appearing “weak”. The question is now whether either side will jump first before May attempts to bring her deal back this week – or a compromise still remains elusive.
