Race is on to complete deal before EU summit on Sunday after Rees-Mogg’s ERG fails to muster 48 no-confidence letters

Theresa May will meet Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on Wednesday to try to finalise the political declaration covering future UK-European Union relations after attempts by hard Brexiters to remove her ended in humiliation.

The prime minister meets the European commission president in the late afternoon in her strongest position since the first part of the Brexit deal was published last week after Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Tory rebels, conceded that it might take time to call a no-confidence vote.

No 10 said it was not prepared to forecast when the final part of the Brexit deal would emerge, although Brussels insiders expect a draft to start circulating on Thursday among a restricted group of officials after the one-on-one meeting.

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Both sides are racing to complete the negotiations in time for Sunday’s EU summit, where the Brexit deal is due to be agreed between the UK and the 27 countries remaining in the EU, although May will then have to push the deal through parliament at a time when dozens of Tories have said they cannot support it.

Cabinet discussed the political declaration at a two-and-a-half-hour meeting which overran because so many people wanted to speak, although sources said the meeting was “relatively calm” by recent standards. Senior ministers were particularly keen to find ways to sell the deal to Conservative colleagues.

Michael Gove, the environment secretary, who considered resigning over the first part of the Brexit deal covering the UK’s exit terms, said the government needed to do a better job selling the agreement and calling out “bogus claims” about it.

One cabinet minister said they believed Brexiter MPs were looking for ways to back the deal and were hoping that May could clarify its controversial aspects by adding explanatory appendices after her visit to Brussels. They described the prime minister as in “listening mode” during the meeting.

The EU’s deputy chef negotiator, Sabine Weyand, told ambassadors for the member states on Tuesday evening that negotiations on the political declaration had stalled on the issues of Gibraltar, the demands from European fishermen for access to British waters, and the UK’s hopes to link the language on the trade in goods to the Chequers proposals and “frictionless trade”.

It is understood that the issue of Spain’s demands for a veto on Gibraltar being covered by a future trade deal will probably be settled only during May’s meeting with Juncker. The two other outstanding issues are to be the subject of future negotiations at the level of officials on Wednesday morning.

EU diplomats said it was likely that the issue of fisheries would have to be settled through a side-declaration to the main document in which the 27 would make their demands for a continuation for the status quo without it being jointly agreed with the British government and causing a political bombshell at home.

The diplomats said the British government would have to accept weaker language than a commitment to “frictionless trade” in the document, given the decision to leave the single market and customs union along with the jurisdiction of the European court of justice.

Earlier on Tuesday, Rees-Mogg was forced to deny that his attempt to remove May had ended in a humiliating failure, even though only 26 MPs had publicly said they had submitted a letter demanding a vote of no confidence in her leadership, well short of the 48 required.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jacob Rees-Mogg (centre) with businessman David Or and former trade minister Peter Lilley: ‘I’ve always admired Captain Mainwaring.’ Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters

Rees-Mogg admitted that the threshold might not be reached for some time. “Patience is a virtue, virtue is a grace,” he said. “We will see what letters come in due time. Do 47 want to come with me or not? I may find that they don’t or they don’t do it today but when we get the meaningful vote. That’s a decision for them.”

The chair of the European Research Group (ERG) of Eurosceptic MPs appeared to switch expectations of a challenge into the more distant future, just a day after his allies led by Steve Baker had suggested the threshold would be reached immediately.

Asked whether it might prove tricky to oust May in a full confidence vote given that the group was struggling to secure 48 names, he said few of his colleagues wanted the prime minister to continue to lead the party into an election due in 2022.

Overnight, critics of the prime minister did little to hide their frustration that a confidence vote had not yet been triggered. Eurosceptic MPs insisted that more letters had been submitted privately and Baker, a former Brexit minister and ERG member, suggested that MPs who had promised to submit letters had secretly not done so.

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Rees-Mogg insisted he had not predicted that the contest would be triggered this week and suggested more colleagues would follow if the prime minister lost the vote on her Brexit deal in parliament. He denied that the events of the past few days were a humiliation. “I think this is exaggerated language; it has been something not everyone wanted to do. That’s political life. Not everyone will always agree with me.”

Asked if his attempt to unseat the prime minister had been exposed as a “Dad’s Army” operation, Rees-Mogg replied: “I’ve always admired Captain Mainwaring.”

But there were signs that patience with Rees-Mogg and Baker was running out at senior levels in the party. One cabinet source said that there was a feeling at the cabinet meeting that moves against the May were irresponsible.

Following the cabinet meeting, Downing Street offered a sop to rebellious hard Brexiters by suggesting technological solutions previously dismissed by No 10 could ultimately be used to maintain an invisible border between the UK and Ireland, and thus eliminate the need for the Northern Ireland backstop.

The prime minister’s spokesman said one of the alternative arrangements “could involve technological solutions” – a suggestion reminiscent of the “maximum facilitation” model that was pushed by hard Brexiters but ditched by No 10 earlier this year.