Brexit: The UK was meant to leave at 11pm tonight - instead, PM has last throw of the dice

Brexit: The UK was meant to leave at 11pm tonight - instead, PM has last throw of the dice

It was a time and date that the prime minister tried to etch into the nation's consciousness: 11pm on 29 March.

Theresa May chose to enshrine it in law. She chose to sign off billions in no-deal spending predicated on this being the exit date. She repeated it over 100 times.

Of course, in many ways, there should be nothing special about this day. There was no specific promise in her election manifestos that this would be the leave date.

Indeed, the actual manifesto promise to have signed a trade deal and a divorce settlement by Brexit Day have been long abandoned.

Had she not already announced her departure, it would be ominous that half the Conservative Party's MPs failed to vote for the date change statutory instrument earlier this week, against a three-line whip, including two-thirds of the actual whips.


Amid that toxic brew, the PM's last throw of the dice is to try to leverage Brexit Day one more time.

Number 10 hopes that by holding the vote on the delayed departure date, MPs will have a clear choice and the possibility of a clear answer to constituents asking "what happened?" That while Brexit was delayed, it will definitely happen on 22 May if her deal is voted through.

If not, the options are no deal or European parliamentary elections and a much longer extension.

The government had no real alternative option.

Speaker John Bercow had banned the return of the same meaningful vote. The only way to get a vote on the deal was to try to meet the extension timetable of EU leaders, and push the withdrawal deal alone rather than the political declaration.

The opposition had indicated privately it could accept the withdrawal agreement, so get it through, guarantee Brexit and argue about changes to the political declaration another time.

After a 20-minute conversation with Jeremy Corbyn, initiated by the PM, Labour confirmed its rejection of the deal.

The DUP rejected it too, some MPs flying in from Belfast to vote it down.

No more than a dozen Labour leave-supporting MPs were contemplating supporting it. A few dozen eurosceptics continued to oppose the deal.

Some government sources were pinning their hopes on Labour and SNP MPs not making it back in time. Desperate times.

MPs were unhappy about the "legal trickery" of splitting the political declaration from the withdrawal agreement.

If it is passed, the government will publish the ratification bill next week. That then leaves until 22 May to pass that piece of legislation which could also repeal the need to pass a separate meaningful vote.

Whereas this had been floated last autumn as a way to get the deal passed by potential Labour MP compromisers, the PM's resignation gambit changes that entirely.

There is little prospect now that promises to deliver in future favour of Brexit can be guaranteed now that the future PM is in the hands of a Tory membership election.

:: Sky Data: Almost half of Brits unconvinced by May's potential replacements

Who are the runners and riders to succeed Theresa May?

Labour frontbenchers, and some former Tory ministers, are imploring potential Labour switchers that a vote for the deal is a vote for May resigning, a shorter extension until May, and a Brexit process controlled by Johnson, Raab or Rees-Mogg.

And yet if it doesn't pass we are surely heading back to the ballot box.

The indicative vote crew has been meeting to settle on compromises that could win a majority. They are serious about legislating to force the government's hand next week on avoiding no deal and backing their compromise.

And yet we come full circle.

The Brexit Day conundrum arises because the PM triggered Article 50 exactly two years ago. She set red lines, without a full plan and then triggered an election which she then lost her majority.

So today is not just a Brexit due date delayed. It is an anniversary of a strategy which gets what might well be its final chance, at lunchtime.