Prime Minister Theresa May has been urged to whip her MPs into stopping Parliament taking a no-deal Brexit off the table.
Facing threat of mass resignations from Tory Remainers, Mrs May made major concessions to the progressive elements in her party last week by allowing the Commons a potential vote on stopping a clean exit from the European Union, as well as delaying Brexit should her Withdrawal Agreement be voted down for a second time on March 12th.
Tory Eurosceptics, including two Cabinet ministers, believe that the prime minister will be put in a weak negotiating position with the EU if her agreement fails and her own MPs reject a no-deal exit — which is the legal default should a deal not be agreed by Brexit day on March 29th — with one Cabinet minister telling The Telegraph that whipping the MPs was the “right approach.”
Former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith MP also told the newspaper, “It is crystal clear that the Government has to keep no deal on the table and whip against an extension.
“That’s what she has said for two years. She has to oppose anyone trying to take it off the table and to reject an extension.
“That will make the EU sit up and understand that we are serious. It won’t give anything until these votes are done.”
Chairman of the European Research Group (ERH) Jacob Rees-Mogg MP added, “The Government must whip for Government policy and manifesto commitments. No deal is specifically referred to in the manifesto.”
Meanwhile, Mrs May is believed to be considering a vote on the UK’s future relationship with the EU in order to gain support for her Agreement from Labour MPs. Downing Street told The Guardian that the prime minister had promised what the newspaper described as an “increased role” for Parliament in the political declaration.
A source close to a Cabinet minister told the liberal-left newspaper that there was “no chance” of the agreement passing next week, with Brexiteers warning May not to try to ambush them with a last-minute deal with the EU on the Irish backstop — a sticking point for the DUP and Eurosceptics — and expect them to support the Agreement without giving the document proper analysis.
Should the vote fail next Tuesday, a vote will be held in the following days on whether to take no-deal off the table. If a no-deal exit is rejected, a second vote on delaying Brexit will be held. Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage warned last week that “If we extend [Article 50] once, we will extend again and again.”
On Tuesday, Attorney General Geoffrey Cox and Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay travel to Brussels to negotiate with the EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier on the Withdrawal Agreement, in hopes of gaining a meaningful compromise on the Irish backstop.
The visit follows on from The Telegraph’s reporting Monday that Mr Cox had given up on attempts to obtain a legally-binding time limit to the backstop — claims the attorney general dismissed as “misunderstood fag ends dressed up as facts.”
“Some of it is accurate, much more of it isn’t and what is not is far more significant than what is. Complex and detailed negotiations cannot be conducted in public,” he wrote.