If political pressure and rhetoric alone could win a parliamentary vote, Theresa May would be certain of victory on Tuesday when MPs deliver their verdict on the latest tweaked version of her Brexit deal.
The UK prime minister has warned of a “moment of crisis” if about 100 Conservative Eurosceptics again reject her deal in a vote on Tuesday, telling Brexiters that they could kill their own project: “We may never leave at all.”
Philip Hammond, chancellor, will use his Spring Statement this week to apply the economic screws to the Eurosceptics, threatening that they will jeopardise billions of pounds of public spending if they force Britain towards a chaotic no deal exit.
Jeremy Hunt, foreign secretary, on Sunday told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that “the stakes are very high”, that Britain was “in perilous waters” and that there was “a risk and a possibility that we end up losing Brexit”.
Mrs May’s argument is that if her deal is rejected a second time, she will lose control of Brexit: parliament would take over, blocking a no-deal exit on March 29 and pushing for an extension of the Article 50 exit process.
Her problem is that many Conservative Eurosceptics, at least for now, seem impervious to warnings that if they keep defeating Mrs May’s Brexit deal they will end up with a much softer form of Brexit, or no Brexit at all.
“Most of us don’t buy the idea that this is the last chance saloon,” said one well-connected source in the pro-Brexit European Research Group. “I don’t see any sign of our people flaking away — if anything people’s positions have hardened.”
Mrs May needs both her interlocutors in Brussels and her critics at Westminster, including the Democratic Unionist party MPs she relies on for her majority, to believe that the vote scheduled for this Tuesday really is the crunch point in the Brexit process; the tipping point between an orderly exit and chaos.
However, Tory MPs in the ERG, who share ideas and co-ordinate tactics via WhatsApp, believe that if they defeat Mrs May’s deal this week they can still succeed in pushing Britain out of the EU in a “clean break”, no-deal exit.
They argue that even if parliament votes to delay Brexit until June, this will turn out to be the longest delay that either Mrs May or Brussels would countenance. So if they hold their nerve until then, a no-deal exit remains possible.
Pro-EU cabinet ministers say this is wishful thinking on a grand scale. “If the House votes this week to stop ‘no deal’ happening at the end of March, why would they allow it to happen at the end of June?” asked one.
But the ERG asserts that the prime minister will do anything to avoid contesting the European Parliament elections on May 23-26 because they risk opening the door to sweeping victories by a new hard Brexit party led by former UK Independence party leader Nigel Farage.
“Who do you think would win that European election?” asked former Brexit secretary David Davis on The Andrew Marr Show. “I don’t think it can be either of the major parties. It might be the new Brexit Party or something like that, because the British people would say, ‘we want to teach you a lesson’.”
If Britain has not left the EU before the new parliament meets in early July, the UK would have to elect MEPs. The idea of a Faragist party joining the swollen ranks of populist parties in Strasbourg would be another reason why Brussels would not want to delay Brexit beyond June, Tory Brexiters argue.
Meanwhile Mrs May’s allies admit that some European leaders have told her privately they believe that the real showdown at Westminster will not come until after a final round of haggling at a European Council meeting on March 21-22.
The prime minister reflected her frustration that EU negotiators were holding back potential concessions for a later date in a speech last week in the fishing town of Grimsby: “The time is now,” she said.
But Michel Barnier, EU chief Brexit negotiator, and his team are asking why they should make concessions ahead of a parliamentary vote which Mrs May looks likely to lose.
Although Mrs May will try to secure concessions to win around Tory Brexiters in the last 48 hours before Tuesday’s vote, an aide to the prime minister admitted talks in Brussels have been difficult: “It has been a tough week.”
With defeat looming, there has been speculation that Mrs May might try to find a parliamentary device to avoid holding the key Commons votes this week. But her team insist they will go ahead.
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MPs quoted by The Sunday Times and Mail on Sunday suggested that if Mrs May cannot pressure the Eurosceptics into backing her deal, she should instead promise to step down as prime minister to secure their support.
Tory Brexiters have suggested the idea to government chief whip Julian Smith but Mrs May’s aides say it has not been raised with her directly, nor is she prepared to make such a bargain. She has already said she will not lead the party into the next election, scheduled for 2022.
While some Eurosceptic Tories like the idea of Mrs May quitting to allow them to take control of the second phase of Brexit — talks on a new EU/UK trade deal — they publicly insist that it would not change the dynamics of this week’s vote.
“No, no, no, that won’t get the deal through,” Mr Davis said. Some ERG members, including the influential Steve Baker, are more concerned about the deal, which they fear could leave Britain trapped in a customs union, than personalities.
Dominic Raab, another former Brexit secretary, said he hoped Mrs May would leave on terms “of her own choosing” but added that if the government delayed Brexit then “that situation will get even trickier”.
