The giant disused towers of Ferrybridge coal-fired power station loom over the A1 on the approach to Pontefract. In their 1970s heyday these great symbols of West Yorkshire’s industrial might employed 850 workers.

Just a few miles away is the site of Britain’s last deep coal mine, Kellingley Colliery, which, like the power station that burnt its coal, went out of production in 2015, with the loss of 450 jobs.

The local MP, Labour’s Yvette Cooper, led lengthy campaigns to save both. She sought investors and EU state aid, met ministers and executives and fought for fair redundancy packages and skills training for those affected. But the campaigns to keep the power station and pit going were ultimately doomed. The towers of Ferrybridge are now earmarked for demolition.

Against this background – and with feelings still raw about the loss of local industries and livelihoods – 70% of voters in Cooper’s constituency of Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford voted to leave the EU in 2016, despite their MP backing Remain.

More than two and a half years on, Cooper is now fighting on other fronts to save her constituents’ jobs as Brexit day on 29 March draws near. Local firms, large and small, are raising concerns with her daily about the effect of a no-deal Brexit on their business models. Recently the luxury goods firm Burberry, which employs 750 people at its factory in Castleford, wrote to Cooper insisting that a no-deal Brexit had to be avoided at all costs.

“A key concern is disruption to our supply chain,” Leanne Wood, the company’s chief people, strategy and corporate affairs officer, told the MP. “Burberry imports and exports signficant volumes of raw materials, samples and finished goods between the UK and EU. Logistical delays would adversely impact our design, product development and fulfilment processes.”

Wood made clear that while Burberry was committed the UK, a no-deal outcome could threaten jobs. “Since the referendum we have been preparing mitigating actions, including seeking Authorised Economic Operator accreditation to reduce customs clearance times,” she wrote. “In the event of a no-deal Brexit we would need to consider implementing additional measures. Clearly, we would like to avoid anything that would involve significant changes to our operating model and adversely impact our workforce in the UK.”

We can’t keep endless stocks, so we rely on timing for delivery, so customs checks would have a significant impact Herwig Vennekens, Haribo

Executives at Haribo, a German confectionery company which has its UK headquarters in Pontefract and employs 700 people across the constituency, have also written to Cooper. “As a food company, we can’t keep endless stocks, so we rely on timing for delivery, so customs checks would have a significant impact on how we operate,” said Herwig Vennekens, Haribo’s managing director for marketing and sales. “We have other European factories, so that increases in price would negatively affect the UK’s competition with those other European factories. It depends on the levels of tariff and checks.” On Friday local NHS leaders met Cooper because they were so worried about the effects of a no-deal Brexit on the supply of medicines and medical instruments, as well as staff recruitment. With Theresa May’s government paralysed by its inability to find a solution to Brexit – and with their constituents beating down their doors demanding to know what can be done to save jobs and businesses in their areas – backbenchers such as Cooper have decided, this coming week, to try to take matters into their own hands. If the government cannot act to save their local communities, they say, they will.

Cooper is just one of numerous MPs who, fearing the effects of a disastrous no-deal or hard Brexit, are planning what would amount to a historic cross-party coup that, if successful, would see control of the Brexit timetable effectively seized from the governing executive, and put into the hands of parliament. “There is such frustration that we have to do this before it is too late,” says one prominent Labour MP and Remainer. “If we succeed we could render Theresa May a virtual irrelevance. We will be in the driving seat. The next few days are really that important.”

On Tuesday the House of Commons will vote on a series of amendments to a Brexit motion that could well determine how, when and possibly even whether, the UK leaves the EU at all. One of the amendments likely to be selected by the speaker, and to be backed by Labour and a group of pro-Remain Tory MPs, is Cooper’s. If passed its implications will be enormous, and open Cooper to inevitable criticism from hardline Leavers in her constituency.

The amendment would ensure parliamentary time for a bill to be introduced that would delay Brexit by nine months until the end of this year if May has failed to get a deal through parliament by late February, which seems increasingly likely. Cooper insists her aim is not to thwart or stop Brexit, but to push the pause button for the sake of her constituents’ jobs, and to allow more time to avoid a cliff-edge exit.

The incompetence of the government, she says, has left MPs with no option but to strike out on their own. “Unfortunately the national debate has just become so polarised because the prime minister hasn’t ever led a proper debate or tried to build consensus on what kind of Brexit the country wants,” Cooper told the Observer.

“Ministers know they cannot let the country drift into a chaotic no-deal. They should be clear about it rather than leaving it for parliament to try to put safeguards in place instead.” She added: “The government has a responsibility to people in our towns to make sure that overstretched families and manufacturing jobs aren’t hit by a chaotic no-deal just because the prime minister handled the negotiations badly and ran out of time.”

Another amendment that is potentially even more far-reaching and would bypass May and her ministers has been tabled by the Tory Remainer and former attorney general Dominic Grieve, who wants to suspend parliament’s normal rules on several days over the coming weeks to give MPs a chance to hold a series of votes on different options for the Brexit withdrawal process, including possibly ruling out a no-deal exit, adopting a Norway-style solution that would mean staying in the single market and a customs union, and holding a second referendum with the option of Remain on the ballot paper.

Labour’s Rachel Reeves, chair of the business, energy and industrial strategy select committee, has put down another which would require the prime minister to request an extension to the article 50 period if the House of Commons has not approved the deal by 26 February.

Meanwhile Hilary Benn, the Labour chair of the Brexit select committee, is pushing an amendment that would require the government to hold a series of indicative votes on options including leaving the EU under the prime minister’s deal, leaving the EU without a deal, leaving the EU under a renegotiated deal (either amending the withdrawal agreement on the Northern Irish backstop, seeking a Canada-style deal or remaining part of the EEA and a customs union) or holding a second referendum.

With just two months to go until the UK is due to leave the EU, the MPs pushing for parliament to take over and May’s government are all involved in a very high-stakes, high-risk game. The prime minister is refusing to take the no-deal option off the table for fear of weakening her negotiating hand with Brussels, or to entertain any idea of delay. This week the MPs will try to force her out of the driving seat and place the responsibility for delivering a Brexit outcome to a divided country on themselves.

But back in their constituencies these same MPs are already finding that not everyone in the areas they represent is ready to thank them.

In Grieve’s Beaconsfield constituency, which voted by 50.7% to leave, there is a campaign to deselect him. His fellow Tory MP Nick Boles, who has worked with Cooper on the plans for delay and a soft Brexit, has similar local problems in his Grantham and Stamford constituency.

On Friday evening he tweeted about a difficult meeting with his local activists, many of whom are diehard Leavers. “Just got home after 2 hours discussing Brexit with 150 or so members of my association. Lots of disagreement and debate. But I want to thank them for taking the trouble to engage. We all tried to follow the Queen’s advice and find common ground.” (In remarks to the Sandringham Women’s Institute last week, the Queen did not need to namecheck Brexit when stressing the importance of “respecting different points of view; coming together to seek out the common ground; and never losing sight of the bigger picture.” MPs got the message.)

In Cooper’s constituency people are divided, too – despite the evidence that a no-deal exit would hurt the local community. Michael Gill, 72, is a former miner who left the pits to become a market trader after an accident left him buried underground. He is a lifelong Labour supporter and an ardent Brexiter.

“They should stop delaying things and just take us out,” he says. When asked about Cooper’s plan to delay Brexit he shakes his head vigorously. “People are fed up. It’s a good job we’re not like other countries because they would be up in arms.”

But Leave voter Cheryl Betteridge, who runs a schoolwear stall in Pontefract, agrees with her MP that to quit the EU without a deal would be a travesty.

“I don’t know how our politicians are going to get us out of this mess, but if Yvette has a plan, then good luck to her,” she says.