Dozens of ministers ready to quit over no‑deal Brexit

Theresa May has reportedly been warned to expect up to 40 of her ministers to resign unless Tory MPs are permitted to vote for a plan to prevent a no-deal Brexit.

Amber Rudd, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has told Number 10 that it should allow a free vote on an amendment drafted by a cross-party group of senior MPs to extend Article 50 until the end of the year if there is no agreement on Brexit by a certain date.

Ms Rudd said 25 to 40 members of the government wanted to vote for the amendment and could resign if they were banned, according to The Times.

One Tory MP told the paper: “Amber is telling Downing Street to make it a free vote on behalf of lots of people.” Another Tory source added: “If they don’t do this there will be resignations. Two ministers have told No 10 they will resign.”

Mrs May refused to contemplate taking a no-deal Brexit off the table as she outlined her Plan B to parliament this morning (AEDT). She told MPs there was no approved alternative yet, and the EU would be unlikely to extend Article 50, the mechanism by which the UK will leave the EU, without an exit plan.

“No-deal will only be taken off the table by either revoking Article 50, which turns back the results of the referendum — the government will not do that — or by having a deal, and that is what we are trying to work out,” Mrs May said.

She said cancelling Article 50 was the only way of preventing a no-deal Brexit.

“The only other guaranteed way to avoid a no-deal Brexit is to revoke Article 50, which would mean staying in the EU,” she said.

Addressing MPs, the British PM also made it clear she would not give in to calls for a customs union or a second referendum.

She said another referendum would strengthen the hand of those seeking to break up the UK and could damage social cohesion by undermining faith in democracy.

However he said she would seek further concessions from the EU on the contentious Irish backstop, and would ease the way for EU citizens living in the UK to remain there, in particular by waiving the £65 ($117) fee.

“My focus continues to be on what is needed to secure the support of this House in favour of a Brexit deal with the EU,” she said.

Hardline Tory Brexiteers object above all to the fact that Britain cannot unilaterally end the backstop, which would keep it in a customs union with the EU until an alternative way of ensuring an open border is found.

Mrs May was forced to deny a report in The Daily Telegraph that she was considering amending the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland, to break the deadlock over the backstop.

With no end in sight to the crisis, German Europe Minister Michael Roth said on Monday that even William Shakespeare would not have been able to think up a Brexit tragedy of such drama.

Mrs May chided Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn for not taking part in cross-party talks, but he said the PM was in denial about the failure of her deal and her statement to the Commons felt like “Groundhog Day”.

“Her current deal is undeliverable,” he said.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the European Research Group of hardline Tory Brexiteers, said Britain was most likely to leave without a deal. However, he said, if the backstop were scrapped, most of the opposition from eurosceptics in Mrs May’s party would be removed.