Five Eurosceptic cabinet ministers are pressing UK prime minister Theresa May to make last-minute changes to her controversial Brexit deal.
The leader of the Commons, Andrea Leadsom, is believed to be co-ordinating the group, which includes Michael Gove, Liam Fox, Chris Grayling and Penny Mordaunt, reports The Guardian.
The ministers believe there is still time for the prime minister to go back to Brussels and renegotiate her deal, the Telegraph reports.
May revealed her draft withdrawal agreement with the EU on Wednesday, setting out the terms of the UK’s departure and the transition period. But the 585-page document has met a backlash from across the political spectrum – including from members of her own party.
Shortly after May announced the deal had the backing of her cabinet, the Brexit minister, Dominic Raab, and the work and pensions secretary, Esther McVey, resigned. They were quickly followed out of the government by a number of junior ministers.
May defended her deal in a three-hour Commons session, during which several MPs openly declared they would vote against the agreement. With Labour’s frontbench and hard Brexiters refusing to back the deal and May’s party in open revolt, many MPs called on May to face up to the reality that she would struggle to get her deal through parliament.
As May took questions from MPs, the high-profile Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg, the chair of the European Research Group, asked if he should write a letter of no confidence. More than 20 Conservative MPs have publicly said they have submitted letters of no confidence in the prime minister. Under Conservative party rules, 48 Conservative MPs must write letters to trigger a confidence vote.
The group of five ministers are reportedly hoping that by changing the most controversial details of the withdrawal agreement, May could avoid both a vote of no confidence and a defeat in parliament. Leadsom said she hoped to work with the other four ministers to change the draft withdrawal deal into something “winnable and supportable”, according to the BBC.
A key focus of the ministers is the Irish backstop. Under the current arrangement, the UK would not be able to leave the backstop without the EU’s consent.
May has vowed to see her agreement through and warned her Tory opponents that their alternate Brexit plans would not make their problems disappear.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, she said: “People say, ‘If you could only just do something slightly different, have a Norway model or a Canada model, this backstop issue would go away’. It would not. That issue is still going to be there.
“Some politicians get so embroiled in the intricacies of their argument they forget it is not about this theory or that theory, or does it make me look good.”
The Conservative party chairman, Brandon Lewis, said May was “prepared for anything”, when asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if she was ready for a leadership challenge.
He added: “When we see various different organisations and groups talk about different ways of leaving the EU – Norway, Canada, all of these things – what we have to be clear about … is all of those require a backstop.”
Though the “group of five” are hoping to to persuade May to change her deal, EU member states have collectively ruled out any redrafting. Michael Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, told EU ambassadors they should not engage in “bargaining”, despite the deepening political crisis in the UK.