PM's Brexit war with Tory rebels may end in general election
The political stakes could hardly be higher in one of the most important weeks of the Brexit crisis, says Sky's Tamara Cohen.
Monday 2 September 2019 20:11, UK
The most critical week for Brexit yet has started with a bang.
Boris Johnson has gone to war with rebel Tories by sending out party whips to deliver the message: block no-deal and you will be kicked out of the party and prevented from standing again as a Conservative.
The prime minister has a majority in parliament of just one.
Will the threat work? Not on everyone. By the rebels - and the government's - admission there are some 20 Tories ready to go over the top, even if they lose their political careers, to stop no-deal.
With the numbers in parliament as they are, even if a few waver and fall into line, it doesn't take more than a handful of Tories to club together with Labour and other parties tomorrow, to force the prime minister back to Brussels if he doesn't secure a deal.
Former cabinet ministers on the backbenches have made clear they are very determined to see this through.
The question for tomorrow is whether their plan is watertight and what Number 10 will throw at them next.
Currently all sides are keeping their guns in their holsters - we haven't seen the wording of the bill the rebels will bring forward tomorrow and how much extra time they will call on Boris Johnson to request from the EU if he fails to secure a deal.
They know the drafting must be loophole-free if they are to succeed, and to rally the broadest possible coalition of support.
Number 10 will deploy their own tactics. There is the possibility of the bill being talked out in the House of Lords.
Some in government are sure Downing Street, which sprung prorogation on the cabinet last week, have other cards up their sleeve.
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Cabinet ministers have, in interviews, refused to guarantee the prime minister would follow a law from MPs if he can possibly help it.
The question reverberating around Westminster is whether Boris Johnson is goading the rebels to defeat him as taking the whip from 20 Tory MPs, as the whips have threatened today, would leave him leading a minority government.
The rebels themselves - whose meeting with the prime minister today to discuss his plans to get an alternative to the backstop was cancelled by Number 10 - smell a rat.
David Gauke, leading figure in the eponymous "Gaukeward" squad, said this morning that he believed Number 10 were trying to use the parliamentary ambush this week to seek an election.
Even those loyal to the prime minister suspect as much.
A former senior minister who will vote with the government this week and described Number 10's tactics towards the rebels as "appalling", is among those who told me Boris Johnson is surely planning to go to the country.
Under the Fixed Term Parliament Act, an election requires a two thirds majority of MPs to vote for it and the prime minister chooses the date. What Labour do in this situation is therefore pivotal.
Can Jeremy Corbyn - who has been calling for an election non-stop for the past two years - instruct his MPs not to vote for one because it would play into the prime minister's hands and could result in a headlong rush to a no-deal Brexit?
That is what Tony Blair is today urging him to do on the grounds it would be an "elephant trap".
It's an extremely tricky case to make: Labour need to believe their leader and his policies would win the day.
Many Tories - scarred by memories of 2017 - are deeply sceptical that an election now would result in a workable majority. But all outcomes are now possible this week, and all sides willing to push the limits.