Britain is plunging head-first into another crisis week for Brexit as Theresa May faces calls to give up control – and quit her job.
The Prime Minister is convening a rare Monday morning Cabinet meeting as she prepares to unveil a way forward for leaving the EU.
EU leaders delayed Brexit last week until just April 12, to decide how the UK moves forward if MPs reject the Brexit deal a third time.
MPs were already well advanced with a bid to seize control of the Brexit process and hold “indicative votes” on the most popular way forward.
Now reports have emerged that Mrs May could launch that process herself, making this week another momentous one for Brexit.
But she faces fresh calls, including from The Sun newspaper, to offer up her resignation in exchange for the deal going through.
Here are 5 fast facts you need to know this Monday morning.
1. Theresa May will hold a do-or-die Cabinet meeting this morning
Theresa May will convene her Cabinet from 10am after a crunch Chequers summit yesterday that saw Brexiteers sit across the table from the government.
Boris Johnson arrived dishevelled and without a seatbelt, Jacob Rees-Mogg arrived with his son and Iain Duncan Smith arrived in an open-top classic sports car at the country residence.
According to reports, some of the more extreme Brexiteers present demanded she quit in the “lengthy” talks. But she gave no ground.
A Monday morning Cabinet meeting is very rare. It is expected to discuss indicative votes (below) and whether there’s enough support to bring back a third vote by MPs on Theresa May’s Brexit deal this week.
2. She’s defied fresh, brutal calls to quit
The normally loyal Sun newspaper comes out today with an excoriating call for the PM to quit.
It says she must offer up her resignation in exchange for MPs backing her Brexit deal, saying she is a “great public servant” but “it’s time to move on”.
Tory backbencher Nigel Evans, a joint executive secretary of the influential Conservative 1922 Committee, added to the calls today.
“Clearly a number of people do not want the Prime Minister anywhere near the next phase of negotiations,” he said.
Yet talk of a “coup” to install an interim PM fizzled out at the weekend after both protagonists, Brexiteer Michael Gove and Remainer David Lidington, denied involvement.
And the PM is said to have faced down the calls for her to name her departure date despite direct challenges at the Chequers summit.
Don’t forget, there’s no clear successor and no legal way to remove the PM through a Tory leadership contest until December (because she has a year’s grace from last time).
3. But today’s real story is ‘indicative votes’
The Westminster knives may be out but the real story today – the one that will affect your life – is a dull process one.
MPs are set to bring forward a plan for “indicative votes”, a multiple-choice vote by MPs to weed out the least unpopular (yes really) way forward for Brexit.
That’s because MPs have consistently said what they don’t want, but not what they do want.
An amendment tabled by former ministers Sir Oliver Letwin and Dominic Grieve and Labour MP Hilary Benn had strong support.
So crucially it looks as though the PM is taking plans for indicative votes into her own hands – with statements due from 3.30pm and votes at 10pm.
According to the Telegraph, ministers are reading documents from 9am on 7 options – the PM’s deal, No deal, a second EU referendum, revoking Article 50 to cancel Brexit, a Free Trade Agreement, Customs Union and Single Market.
Both main parties have hinted there could be a free vote – allowing MPs to make a bold choice.
Shadow Attorney General Shami Chakrabarti urged the PM to “let the Commons have its say this week and listen to it”, adding: “There will have to be options put up that probably aren’t Labour Party policy. We have to find a way to allow people to coalesce.”
Not all will be happy with this.
Labour MP Stephen Doughty tweeted: “Any rigged Government-led process risks having little confidence in Parliament and even less with the public.
“Rushed. Loaded. Like comparing apples and pears. People’s Vote must be a bolt-on to ANY deal – not an either / or choice.”
4. Revoking Article 50 is backed by a Tory minister
A Tory minister has become the first member of the government to back revoking Article 50 – which would cancel Brexit.
Some 22,000 of the 5.4million people backing a petition to revoke are in Foreign Office minister Mark Field’s constituency.
The Cities of London and Westminster MP came out for the dramatic position after organisers claimed one million people marched through London for a People’s Vote on Saturday.
He told the BBC’s Westminster Hour: “My personal view is that I would be happy to revoke Article 50.
“I appreciate that is probably a minority view, but if we get to this utter paralysis and I sincerely hope that in the next 48, 72 hours we do not, then if that becomes an option, it’s an option I personally would take.
“I accept it probably would not be a majority view in the House of Commons.”
5. And Boris Johnson is leading a Biblical Exodus
Boris Johnson has used possibly the most unfortunate metaphor ever to describe Brexit.
The blundering Tory compared Theresa May to Moses from the Bible, calling on her to tell the EU: “Let My People Go”.
It came in a blistering Daily Telegraph column where he accused the government of “chickening out” of delivering Brexit this week.
“We have blinked. We have balked. We have bottled it completely. We have now undergone the humiliation of allowing the EU to decide the date on which we may make our own departure,” he wrote.
He added: “Extend the implementation period to the end of 2021 if necessary; use it to negotiate a free trade deal; pay the fee; but come out of the EU now – without the backstop.
“It is time for the PM to channel the spirit of Moses in Exodus, and say to Pharaoh in Brussels – let my people go.”
He’s forgotten one thing, of course.
After Moses’ people were let go, they spent 40 years wandering the desert.
