After the PM’s trip to Africa, comes six months of extraordinary political drama

Embattled prime ministers seeking to escape the petty squabbles of Westminster and burnish their reputation for statesmanship have long favoured a conveniently timed trip abroad; though as Jim Callaghan famously discovered on his return from Barbados in January 1979, the sense of relief can be fleeting.

Theresa May is returning to the political frontline this week, not in Westminster, but by demonstrating her commitment to a post-Brexit “global Britain” with a visit to three African countries.

But while she is glad-handing officials in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, ministers, MPs and political activists of every stripe will be gearing up for six months of extraordinary political drama.

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May and her small team of allies must fight a series of interlocking battles if they are to emerge from the autumn with her leadership intact – and guide Britain out of the European Union next March, without fracturing the Tory party along the way.

First, of course, are the negotiations in Brussels. Dominic Raab, the karate blackbelt Brexit secretary, is the frontman for the talks, and has promised to approach them with “vim and vigour”, but as he himself publicly accepts, May is the ultimate negotiator.

It is far from clear how the impasse with Brussels over the Irish backstop can be resolved, and, more broadly, whether May’s Chequers vision for the future relationship with the EU27, with its “common rulebook” for goods but looser relationship for services, is negotiable.

David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister closely involved in the process, conceded last week that the deadline for completing the negotiations could slip, from October’s European council meeting, to November, when an extra summit could be called.

“I was Europe minister for six years. I lived through enough emergency European council meetings to know that the European council can call additional meetings when it wants to,” said Lidington, who effectively serves as Theresa May’s deputy.

Many in Brussels believe that if anything like a Chequers-style relationship is to be acceptable, it will entail further concessions, including over freedom of movement.

That could mean offering EU citizens special rights to travel and work in Britain – which in turn could spark a battle on a second front – inside cabinet.

Relations between remainers and leavers across the cabinet table are already fraught, spiced up by the fact that several of its members, including Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove, appear to fancy themselves as a potential future leader.

May successfully weathered the resignations of Boris Johnson and David Davis before the summer, albeit with her authority dented; but a walkout by another batch of malcontents would be much harder to shake off.

Johnson and Davis have both made clear they will now take their fight against the Chequers deal to the third battlefield for May: parliament, where she has no stable majority, and many of her own MPs believe Brexit is more important than party loyalty.

She narrowly escaped defeat on the EU withdrawal bill before the summer, on an amendment aimed at keeping Britain in the customs union. Downing Street insiders later said losing the knife-edge vote could have forced her to call a general election.

On a series of other issues, the government made concessions rather than face an embarrassing showdown.

May needs to put in place a series of crucial pieces of legislation, including an immigration bill, before Brexit next March. Rebels on both sides of her party – Anna Soubry’s soft Brexiters and Jacob Rees-Mogg’s hardliners – are likely to try to use the debates and votes on all of these bills to influence government policy and show their parliamentary strength.

Steve Baker, the former DexEU minister who is a senior figure in Rees-Mogg’s European Research Group, said before the summer that claims there were 40 MPs ready to vote against May’s Chequers position, were “out by a factor, not a fraction”, suggesting he believes 80 or more could be ready to do so.

And they will have colourful champions in the figures of Johnson and Davis, neither of whom is likely to take quietly to their new seat on the backbenches.

This parliamentary trial of strength will reach its ultimate crisis in the meaningful vote on the Brexit deal, which parliament secured as the quid pro quo for backing the government’s EU withdrawal act.

With Labour highly likely to oppose the deal, after setting six tests which appear all but impossible to fulfil, May may have to rely on Labour rebels to secure parliament’s backing - though some of the ERG’s more mainstream supporters may lose their nerve if they fear that rejecting the deal could result in Brexit being postponed, or even overturned.

And it’s what happens in the run-up to that meaningful vote, and afterwards, that is fomenting trouble for May on yet another front — in the grassroots Conservative party.

The prime minister summoned local party chairs to Downing Street to be briefed on the details of the Chequers deal before the summer; but many members appear to be dissatisfied with the prospect of what Johnson has called a “miserable permanent limbo”.

When May addresses her party at its annual conference in Birmingham at the start of October, she will do so knowing that many activists are sceptical about her handling of the talks; and some will be more eagerly awaiting the less-scripted interventions of Johnson, Davis or Rees-Mogg at fringe meetings and drinks parties.

To make matters worse, Leave.EU, the pressure group set up by rightwing businessman Arron Banks, is pouring resources into persuading its backers to join the Conservative party to lobby for a harder Brexit position: and to vote in a future leadership contest, if the moment comes.

Even if May successfully overcomes all of these challenges, in her own party and outside, at home and abroad, and pulls off Brexit, most senior Tories believe she is unlikely to remain leader for long - and certainly not until the next general election is scheduled, in 2022.

And the difficulties of plotting a smooth political course to March 2019 have sparked growing speculation that the deeply divisive question of what sort of Brexit Britain wants (if indeed it still wants one at all), could yet be thrown back to the public, whether at a snap general election or another referendum. And what happens then is anyone’s guess.

Just four months after Callaghan descended to the tarmac to dismiss the idea Britain was gripped with chaos, inspiring the Sun headline, “Crisis, what crisis?” he was swept from Downing Street by a triumphant Margaret Thatcher. May must hope her own crisis proves more manageable.