Sky Views: If Theresa May won't take no-deal off the table, her MPs will

Sky Views: If Theresa May won't take no-deal off the table, her MPs will

Beth Rigby, deputy political editor

Steve Baker's political awakening came in 2008 when the then-Labour prime minister Tony Blair ratified the Lisbon Treaty without holding a promised plebiscite.



"It sent me through the roof," the leading eurosceptic told me when I interviewed him for the Financial Times back in 2015.

"If there is one thing I am absolutely hardline on, it is that political power must be under democratic control."



It was his fury over the Lisbon Treaty, which for many eurosceptics symbolised the entrenching of EU power at the expense of the nation state, that prompted the 36-year-old software engineer to join the Tory party and stand as an MP.



Since then, his entire political career has been focused on extricating the UK from the EU.

His conviction is absolute and his resolve unbending.

Image: Steve Baker has said he believes 'political power must be under democratic control'

There are perhaps three dozen more Tory MPs like Mr Baker who are immovable on the matter of Brexit.


They refuse to back Theresa May's deal unless she re-opens the 585-page international treaty (the withdrawal agreement) setting out the terms of Britain's exit from the EU and finds "alternative arrangements" to the Irish backstop, designed to ensure there is no hard border in Ireland.



If she can't, or won't, deliver this, a hardcore of her MPs are content to leave with no deal.

And last week, eurosceptics reminded the prime minister they will not crack, as dozens abstained in a vote for her Brexit plan because it appeared to rule out exactly that.

This was a symbolic vote, carrying no actual meaning in law, but the defeat served to further embarrass an already humiliated prime minister and undermine her argument in Brussels that there is a "stable majority" in parliament for a re-worked version of her deal.

The Brexiteers I spoke to in central lobby on the night of that defeat were unrepentant; they would not support the government on a motion that appeared to take no deal off the table - even if the vote did not translate into law.

But their actions had a perhaps unintended effect of awakening the Remainer rebellion.

Ministers and MPs who have doggedly supported Mrs May's Brexit deal, even of they don't like it much either, were furious that this "party within the party" is dictating the terms of Brexit and pushing the country towards a no-deal.

Now they are preparing to rise up to act as a counter-weight to their eurosceptic colleagues.

A group of up to 30 government ministers are preparing block a no-deal Brexit.

They are working out how many of them need to resign from government in order to support the Cooper/Letwin amendment that will give parliament the power to take no-deal off the table.



The older ministers are preparing to resign so the younger ones don't have to, with one minister telling me he is already organising his departmental leaving party in anticipation of his resignation.

One rebel said: "The country looks on and thinks we're being run by 40 MPs and that decisions about Brexit are being taken solely to keep the Tory party together. That simply can't do."



This looming showdown will prove explosive for the Conservative Party: the fury of the Brexiteers will be a sight to behold should their colleagues vote to give parliament the power to defy their own prime minister by ruling out no-deal and, if necessary, delaying Brexit.

This looming showdown will prove explosive for the Conservative party: the fury of the Brexiteers will be a sight to behold.

There is a chance this could be avoided if Mrs May and her attorney general Geoffrey Cox can win further concessions on the backstop from Brussels, and convince enough of her own MPs that Britain will not be trapped in a customs union with the EU indefinitely.

She is very unlikely to win over the Brexit ultras like Mr Baker but Brexiteers operate on a spectrum too, and some might be willing to accept reassurances on the backstop short of re-opening the withdrawal agreement.



"At least half (of the pro-Brexit Europeran Research Group) are very keen to back her," explained one Brexiteer this week.

"They want to see Brexit delivered and see the likely alternatives.

"They would probably accept a codicil if the advice of the attorney general is that it means the backstop is temporary."

Image: Jacob Rees-Mogg is chairman of the Brexit-supporting European Research Group

A shift from some of the European Research Group (ERG) and the Democratic Unionist Party, and support from some Labour leavers: it all pieces together to make a very narrow landing strip for Mrs May's plan.

Whether she can actually land the deal is hard to predict: Will enough Labour leavers support her? Will the EU offer the concessions she needs ahead of the showdown next Tuesday or sit on its hands and let Parliament take over? Will enough Brexiteers take fright at the prospect of Brexit being blocked to fall into line behind the prime minister?



There are just 37 days to go until Britain is due to leave the EU and our government, parliament and citizens remain in deeply uncertain territory.

But as the civil wars in the Conservative and Labour parties continue over which direction Brexit should take, enough MPs have at least agreed this ahead of next week: if Theresa May won't take no-deal off the table, they will.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.