Over the next two days, hundreds of peers of the realm who rarely speak in parliament will pack their bags and head for the House of Lords. The palace of Westminster is busy preparing for one of the biggest occasions in the long and illustrious history of the upper house. Its splendid bars and restaurants have stocked up with extra food and drink, and staff have been put on overtime for unusually late sittings.

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“I cannot recall in my time here so many on the speaking list,” said one senior figure in the Lords. “It is all great fun.” Approximately 185 peers are already down to speak on the EU withdrawal bill, which has its second reading on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The two-day debate will pit the grandees of the Remain and Leave arguments against one another. In one sense, it will just replay, in a different location and in a more respectful manner, the same Brexit issues that have preoccupied MPs down the corridor in the Commons for months, and that are now crippling Theresa May’s crisis-riven government.

“You could view it just as the Brexit battle reconvened on red benches, not green ones,” said one Tory peer. “That said, it is a huge occasion not just for the House of Lords but for the future of this country too. The question for us is not only the massive one of Brexit, but also of our role in the constitution. How far do we, can we, as unelected peers, go in taking on the government?”

All the signs are that the Lords, where there is a clear majority for Remain, will go as far as they can to amend the bill – and that is grim news for a prime minister under intense pressure to steer huge volumes of legislation through parliament and deliver Brexit by 29 March 2019. As the clock ticks and the sheer complexity and workload of leaving the EU becomes more apparent by the day, both houses of parliament are more disunited than ever, and both main parties ever more split on exactly what leaving should mean. Inter-house warfare between Commons and Lords will play out against a background of civil war in the Tory party, and deep divisions in Labour. Tempers are already fraying in the Lords even before a single peer speaks.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Andrew Adonis. Photograph: Simon Dawson/Reuters

“There is deep skulduggery going on already,” says the anti-Brexit Labour peer Andrew Adonis, who complains of a lack of adequate time for debate. “It is utterly disgraceful that time has been limited for discussion on a bill that is supposed to be about restoring sovereignty to our parliament.”

This week’s Lords debate will be a mere curtain-raiser for months of wrangling as Brexit day nudges ever nearer. Serious amendments to the withdrawal bill that could result in the government being defeated – over issues such as whether a firm departure day should be set at all, whether the UK should retain membership of the customs union and the single market, and the proposal to hold a second referendum – will not even be put down by peers until the committee and report stages in the Lords, which could run until May or beyond. Parliament will by then be clogged up with other Brexit bills, all of them contentious.

“We are facing a massive volume of legislation, not just the main bills but then 1,000 statutory instruments have to be agreed, which is a massive number,” says the Lib Dem leader in the Lords, Dick Newby. “It is very difficult to see how we can possibly get through it all in time.”

The Conservative benches in the Lords contain some of the most hardline and prominent advocates of both sides of the argument. Tories in the Remain camp who will rise to their feet include the former party chairman Chris Patten, the Duke of Wellington (who is closely involved in cross-party talks on how to forge a soft Brexit), Ros Altmann (the former pensions minister) and Patrick Cormack (a former MP and expert on parliamentary procedure and the constitution).

From the pro-Brexit wing will be the former Tory leader William Hague, the ex-home secretary Michael Howard (also a former party leader), the former chancellor Norman Lamont and the former Scottish secretary Michael Forsyth.

For Theresa May, arguments in both houses will shine another powerful light on what many in her party see as the impossibility of her position. She is trying to deliver an acceptable Brexit to a divided party, through a divided parliament, and to a divided country – and in trying to do so is satisfying almost no one.

As her own party’s arguments deepen, and her inability to defuse them becomes ever more apparent, the Brexit crisis is growing in parallel with questions about May’s longevity in office. Increasingly Tory MPs are asking how long she can survive. While May tries to steer a middle ground between hard and soft Brexit Tory factions, she presides over a government of drift that risks becoming paralysed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michael Howard. Photograph: Sky News

One Tory cabinet minister says that Brexit is consuming both houses and sucking the life out of a government that has urgent domestic matters like the NHS to deal with. “The problem is that we have a hard Brexit Tory party, a mainly soft Brexit parliament, and a government that draws its power from that parliament. The result is the mess we are in and we can’t get on with anything.”

The pro-Remain MP Anna Soubry adds that the party is stuck in a desperate plight: “People might want to replace Theresa May but really, can we spend three months electing a new leader when we are approaching the biggest decision this country has faced in years and have so much else to deal with? It would be mad.”

Nonetheless, May’s position is in grave doubt again. Her cabinet reshuffle this month was supposed to reassert her authority but has merely opened new wounds and caused fresh resentments. The pro-Brexit Tory right had hoped that their man, Steve Baker, now a middle-ranking minister, would be appointed to the cabinet. But it never happened.

“She was unable to sack people to make room because she is so weak, and just made a number of minor changes lower down the ranks that annoyed the right and others wanting to get up the ladder,” said one ex-minister.

The right now fears that soft-Brexiters such as Chancellor Philip Hammond and the home secretary, Amber Rudd, will continue to call the shots. The outspoken Jacob Rees-Mogg has been elevated to lead the hard-Brexit European Research Group of MPs and has since openly called into question essential parts of May’s core Brexit strategy, including her pursuit of a two-year transition period in which the UK would observe EU rules and law in return for access to the single market. The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has begun manoeuvring amid the uncertainty (calling for more cash for the NHS when the budget had doled out billions more), to the dismay of many cabinet colleagues.

Tory MPs from the pro-EU “Cameroon” wing have broken cover to openly criticise May for dithering and lacking ideas, echoing the kind of attacks aimed at John Major during the dark days of party unrest in the 1990s. In a tweet, one former minister, Nick Boles, said: “There is a timidity and lack of ambition about Mrs May’s government which means it constantly disappoints. Time to raise your game, prime minister.”

Even Nicholas Soames, grandson of Winston Churchill, and normally a loyalist, recently broke cover, asking: “Where is the bold and brave? So far it’s dull, dull, dull.”

May has been forced to give dressings-down in cabinet to Johnson, and to disown comments from her chancellor, who suggested last week in Davos that changes in the UK’s trading relationship would not be very profound, post-Brexit – a view seized on by hard Brexiters as beyond the pale.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ros Altmann. Photograph: Graham Turner/The Guardian

Michael Gove, the environment secretary, is said by some Tory MPs to be biding his time, eager to revive his leadership ambitions, thwarted in 2016 when he stabbed Johnson in the back and had to pull out amid cries of unforgivable treachery.

There are rumours that dozens of Tory MPs have written to the chair of the 1922 committee, Graham Brady, calling for a vote of no confidence in Theresa May, though Brady is keeping quiet until the number reaches the necessary 48, at which point the rules require him to act.

A prime minister who hoped the new year would see her win respect for just surviving and soldiering on appears in danger of running out of road. A former cabinet minister says the removal of her key ally Damian Green from the cabinet and the switch of Gavin Williamson from the whips’ office to the position of defence secretary, have removed two allies from vital positions in which they were able to help shore up her support in the parliamentary party.

As the Lords prepare to get their teeth into the EU withdrawal bill, Tory civil war over Brexit and parliamentary logjams add to an impression of a government unable to meet the challenge it faces.

The Lib Dem leader, Vince Cable, predicts that the government will face a string of defeats in the Lords on Brexit. “It is a long war of attrition,” he says. “There is potentially a capacity to substantially change the legislation in important respects.”

Fears are growing that the government will not be able to reach a deal with Brussels in time for a meaningful vote in parliament later this year – a prospect that could give Labour and Tory rebels in the Commons, as well as the Scottish National party, ample reason to vote it down. What would happen then is anyone’s guess.

Some Tory MPs predict, however, that the prime minister may not survive that long. They fear that local elections in May, which are likely to coincide with key votes in the Commons and Lords on Brexit, will virtually wipe out their party in London and other cities.

“I don’t think anything will happen on leadership until then,” said a former cabinet minister. “But if we are massacred at that point, then those MPs with small majorities will find their sense of self-preservation will kick in. When that happens the whole thing could blow open.”