MPs will try again to chart a new Brexit path on Monday after rejecting Prime Minister Theresa May's deal for a third time, with hardliners in her party worried she may back a customs unions with the EU as a way to end the current impasse.
Less than two weeks before Britain risks crashing out of the European Union, MPs will hold a second round of votes on various options to try to break the political deadlock.
But any attempt to force May to accept a closer relationship with the EU risks splitting the government, and there is widespread speculation she might try one last time to get her deal passed this week.
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European Union leaders have called an emergency summit on April 10 and have warned that unless Britain sets out what it wants to do, it risks severing ties with its largest trading bloc two days later with no deal at all.
"With our British friends we have had a lot of patience, but even patience is running out," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told Italian public TV channel Rai 1 on Sunday.
Softer Brexit
May struck a divorce deal with the EU last November, but it has been repeatedly rejected by MPs, the last time on Friday – even after she promised to resign if her rebellious Conservative colleagues helped push the deal through.
Frustrated with her approach, MPs in the House of Commons last week voted to give themselves powers to find an alternative strategy, by holding a series of "indicative votes" on various options.
No single plan won a majority in the first round but MPs hope to whittle down the proposals on Monday evening, with voting starting at 8pm local time (7pm GMT).
The two most popular options last week were a new EU-UK customs union or a public vote on any agreed deal. There were a large number of abstentions on another widely discussed option, based on Norway's membership of the single market.
In an interview with the BBC released Monday, Chief Whip Julian Smith – the man responsible for enforcing discipline among May's MPs and ministers – suggested that a closer relationship with the EU was "inevitable".
The 2017 election where May lost her parliamentary majority meant "this would be inevitably a kind of softer type of Brexit", he said.
He also denounced the behaviour of May's own ministers, who he said were trying to undermine her. "This is I think the worst example of ill-discipline in cabinet in British political history," he said.
Back to the polls?
While some pro-European members of May's cabinet might support a customs union, she herself is opposed and it threatens mass rebellion among the rest of her ministers.
Brexit-supporting minister Andrea Leadsom has reportedly organised a letter signed by 170 Conservative MPs including 10 cabinet ministers, demanding a swift Brexit, with or without a deal.
On Monday, hardline Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg said he was worried May could add a customs union to her Brexit deal as a way to break the parliamentary impasse.
"My concern is that the prime minister is more concerned to avoid a no-deal Brexit than anything else and therefore I am very concerned that she could decide to go for a customs union tacked on to her deal," Rees-Mogg said on LBC Radio.
Speculation is growing that the only way out of the impasse may be a general election.
But many Conservative MPs oppose the idea, and polling on Sunday put Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party ahead.
Conservative deputy chairman James Cleverly told Sky News: "I don't think an election would solve anything."
He added: "Time is of the essence, we have got Brexit to deliver. We don't want to add any more unnecessary delay."
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
