By Glen Owen Political Editor For The Mail On Sunday
Published: 22:01 GMT, 16 March 2019 | Updated: 22:02 GMT, 16 March 2019
View
comments
The Prime Minister has been advised that, if her agreement is rejected again this week then the Commons would have the power to delay Brexit indefinitely
Theresa May has warned Tory MPs that if her Brexit deal fails to pass the Commons this week the UK will be stuck in the Brussels version of a ‘Hotel California’ – unable ever to leave the EU.
The Prime Minister has been advised that, if her troubled agreement is rejected again this week – forcing her to apply to the EU for a long extension to Article 50 – then the Commons would have the power to delay Brexit indefinitely.
The officials warned Mrs May that, because a delay which runs beyond June would oblige the UK to participate in this year’s European parliamentary elections, ‘there is effectively no limit to the number of extensions of Article 50 the UK can ask for or be required to ask for by Parliament’.
Mrs May said last night: ‘The idea of the British people going to the polls to elect MEPs three years after voting to leave the EU hardly bears thinking about. There could be no more potent symbol of Parliament’s collective political failure’.
The Government has been locked in critical negotiations with the DUP this weekend to persuade them to sign up to Mrs May’s deal. Their discussions have focused on Attorney General Geoffrey Cox’s ‘clarification’ of his legal advice on the backstop.
Downing Street hopes that, if the DUP backs the deal, most rebel Tory MPs would then also fall into line.
With another tumultuous week in prospect at Westminster, The Mail on Sunday today reveals that:
No 10 believes the delay to Brexit can be limited to under two months if MPs back the deal. Leave-supporting MPs, led by former Brexit Secretary David Davis, have signed a public letter urging Tory MPs to vote for the deal. A ‘suicide squad’ of hardline Brexiteers is plotting to ‘blow up’ Mrs May’s Government if she tries to impose a long delay to Brexit. Moves to deselect pro-Remain Tory MPs have reportedly started in more than 50 local associations after last week’s Commons voting drama. Allies of Boris Johnson have claimed that Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Health Secretary Matt Hancock are trying to ‘stitch up’ a post-May leadership contest by keeping Brexiteers off the ballot paper. Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss has added to the sense of civil war
