It’s 23 months since Theresa May formally triggered the Brexit process and her defining mission to deliver an orderly withdrawal has almost run out of road.
At a summit on the shores of the Red Sea in Egypt, where May is holding backroom negotiations with EU leaders, it’s clear she and those around her know it. Her allies see no good options.
“I have no idea where we will be by the end of this week,” said one government insider, who asked not to be named. “She has nowhere to go.”
On Wednesday some of May’s most senior Cabinet ministers are threatening to walk out of her government because they want to stop the no-deal Brexit the premier insists is still the default outcome if Parliament refuses to back her plan.
If the Conservative rebels succeed, the House of Commons is likely to pass a new law to take control over Brexit out of May’s hands.
Then the UK’s departure day will be delayed from March 29, and Britain will be stuck inside the EU. May will have failed to deliver the one goal that has defined her entire premiership. And the euroskeptic wing of her ruling Conservative Party is very likely to explode - possibly even trying to bring down the government.
Averting Disaster
Amber Rudd, the pensions secretary, justice minister David Gauke, and Business Secretary Greg Clark are all wrestling with their own political suicides. They want to stop May’s apparent drift towards the economic cliff-edge of a no-deal Brexit and see this week as their last realistic chance of doing so. One question is whether these three ministers - and as many as 20 others - don’t just quit the government but leave the Tory party too.
Last week saw three pro-EU Conservatives defect to join a new Independent Group of members of Parliament, as the Brexit earthquake cracked the traditional party structures that have propped up British politics for decades.
Rudd, Gauke and Clarke broke ranks on Saturday and wrote an unauthorised joint article for a British newspaper in which they effectively threatened to quit to stop the UK crashing over the edge on exit day.
May spoke to the ministers last week, when they warned her what they were planning. She will try to win them over in further talks on Tuesday and potentially Wednesday, one person familiar with the matter said. May’s chief whip Julian Smith is also doing everything he can think of to persuade the ministers not to jump.
Poker Face
At the root of the crisis is the mystery that has shaped Brexit: nobody knows what May will do.
For tactical reasons in the middle of a negotiation, the prime minister can’t promise Rudd and others that she won’t enforce a no-deal Brexit on March 29, any more than she can vow to euroskeptics in her party that she won’t agree to delay the divorce.
May must keep up her poker face, while asking her doubtful colleagues to trust her. The problem is no one feels they can. And as time runs out for a solution, EU leaders are as mystified as everyone else.
On a warm spring morning in the Egyptian resort, May held meetings with her European counterparts in yet another attempt to get concessions on the most difficult part of the withdrawal agreement - the Irish border backstop.
During the course of a 45-minute breakfast meeting over pastries, cheese and fruit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked May if she’s considering a two-month extension to the March 29 deadline.
May is said to have replied - as she always has to - that she doesn’t want a delay, and is keen to get the deal done to leave the EU on time.
Everywhere she goes, May is dogged by the same question: what happens next if she can’t get a deal through Parliament? Will she drive Britain over the edge of the cliff, unleashing economic and political chaos? Or will she back a move to postpone exit day.
On her flight to Sharm el-Sheikh on Sunday, May’s exasperation with always getting asked that question was obvious.
“Why is it that everybody is always trying to look for the next thing, after the next thing, after the next thing?” she told reporters traveling with her.
“I know it’s what you do, but it would be quite nice if we focused on what we’re doing now, which is working to get a deal.”
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