Tories warn May against calling snap election to end Brexit crisis
MPs are to hold further indicative ballots to try to agree a way forward, as the PM hints at the prospect of an election.
Sunday 31 March 2019 13:46, UK
Tory MPs on both sides of the Brexit debate have told聽Theresa May they will resist any attempt by her to call a snap general election in a bid to end the crisis engulfing the party.
Leavers and Remainers fear the party is in no state to fight an election if she goes to the country early.
It ramps up the pressure on the embattled prime minister as she considers a last-ditch attempt to save her Brexit deal after suffering a third defeat in the Commons.
Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan told The Observer: "If we have a general election before Brexit is resolved, it will only make things worse."
Under the terms of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, the prime minister needs a two-thirds majority in order to call an election.
However, after her disastrous decision to go to the polls early in 2017, Tory MPs made clear they would not be prepared to support her in doing so again.
Pro-EU backbencher Antoinette Sandbach told The Observer: "The answer is not a general election, and I would vote against that. We need to find a way forward in parliament."
Mark Francois, the deputy chairman of the pro-Brexit European Research Group, told the paper there was "not a
chance" MPs would back an election under her leadership.
"Of course they wouldn't - not after last time. And remember, she needs a super majority to do it," he said.
Nigel Evans, executive secretary of the backbench Conservative 1922 Committee, said the cabinet would block it.
"I don't believe the cabinet would allow her to do it," he told the newspaper.
"Theresa May cannot call an election, she cannot be the leader who would lead us into it. The party would not tolerate it."
Mrs May has also been warned to reject a longer delay to Brexit.
A letter sent by Tory MPs to Mrs May urging her to only seek a short extension to article 50 was organised by a government minister, Sky News understands.
One of the MPs who signed the letter said it was two paragraphs long and called on her not to move towards adopting a customs union.
A Conservative source said: "The letter reaffirmed our commitment to the manifesto, and to the PM's own determination to seek a short extension to Article 50 that avoids the EU elections."
Mrs May is weighing up her next steps after her deal was voted down by 286 votes to 344 on Friday - the day Britain was meant to have left the EU.
She said the implications of the vote were "grave", adding: "I fear we are reaching the limits of this process in this House".
The prime minister has been urged by some in her own cabinet to embrace a no-deal Brexit.
Sky News political editor Faisal Islam said a delegation of ministers went to Downing Street after the vote to urge the PM to reject a softer Brexit and go for no-deal.
Downing Street sources have suggested the prime minister has not given up hope of getting it through the Commons, pointing out that the scale of the defeat was significantly smaller than in the previous two votes.
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The government must now present a new way forward to the EU by 12 April or face leaving without a deal on that date.
MPs will consider further options through a series of indicative votes in parliament next week.
Options include remaining in a customs union, holding a second referendum, or no deal.
The EU has called an emergency summit on 10 April to discuss the implications of the vote.
Mrs May said Friday's vote means Britons will "almost certainly" have to elect MEPs to the European Parliament in elections taking place at the end of May.
After the vote, the PM's official spokesman refused to deny four times that she is now considering a general election.
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Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he backed that idea and called for Mrs May to quit.
"The House has been clear this deal now has to change," he said. "There has to be an alternative found.
"If the prime minister can't accept that then she must go. Not at an indeterminate date in the future, but now, so that we can decide the future of this country through a general election."
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Meanwhile, Labour deputy leader Tom Watson has suggested the time has come for a national unity government.
In an interview with Prospect magazine, he said: "I prefer Labour governments and I hope we never get to a point where our economy or security is so in peril that we get a government of national unity."
But he added: "If needs must, we have to then do what's right."