Brexiteer Tory MPs have accused Theresa May of a presenting a “charade” over the deadlocked negotiations with Brussels, as relations with Downing Street reached new lows on Monday.



Four leading Conservative Eurosceptics told BuzzFeed News they believed Number 10 was using the breakdown in talks to stave off a slew of cabinet resignations and keep her Brexit proposals alive until a special EU summit expected in November.

After a meeting on Sunday in Brussels between Brexit secretary Dominic Raab and EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier failed to produce an agreement, the prime minister told MPs on Monday that “two problems remain” — Brussels is so far refusing to agree to UK-wide customs arrangements for the backstop, and the two sides have failed to agree a solution that guarantees the backstop is temporary.

However, May added: “I do not believe the UK and the EU are far apart.”

Ministers including Raab, Andrea Leadsom, Penny Mordaunt, and Esther McVey were said to be considering their positions if May accepted a backstop that keeps the UK inside a customs union without a time limit. The Democratic Unionist Party opposes a backstop that places a regulatory or customs border in the Irish sea.

But Tory Brexiteers said the impasse was simply an attempt to avoid a cabinet revolt this week and keep the show on the road through this week’s European Council summit in Brussels until the real crunch moment in November.

By that point, the Brexiteers fear, Downing Street will have wound down the clock long enough to argue that it is late to change course, allowing May to make concessions to EU on the backstop and present MPs with a choice of her deal or no deal.

“The PM can wrap herself in the flag this week, like she did at Salzburg,” said a source close to a cabinet minister. “Number 10 will be able to get through the week even if there is no deal, because it keeps the cabinet intact.”

The source predicted that the UK would ultimately agree a form of words that commits to a temporary backstop with a break clause, but does not meet Brexiteers’ demands for a set time limit. They said that by this point, time would have run out for Brexiteers to put forward an alternative plan.

In the Commons on Monday, May swerved a question from Leave MPs Boris Johnson and Iain Duncan Smith over when the customs union backstop would end and who could decide to end it.