Theresa May will insist to EU leaders that her defeat in parliament on Thursday does not change her belief that her Brexit deal can still achieve a majority – as long as there are changes to the backstop.
May is likely to head to Brussels next week after another crushing defeat in parliament inflicted by Eurosceptic backbenchers, as well as speaking to more EU leaders over the weekend.
A motion in parliament spelling out the next steps for her Brexit negotiations was defeated after the European Research Group, led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, abstained on a government motion because it appeared to rule out a no-deal Brexit.
The prime minister hopes that other EU leaders will be more understanding of the kind of parliamentary game-playing seen on Thursday than officials in Brussels. “They are all politicians,” said a government source.Privately, Downing Street is exasperated by what it regards as self-interested posturing by some MPs. Sources described the prime minister as furious in the voting lobbies on Wednesday night.
On Friday, May’s spokeswoman said the previous vote in January, where MPs passed an amendment demanding the backstop be replaced with alternative arrangements and rejected the possibility of no deal, was the only one which had spelt out what parliament would accept.
“The motion on the 29th of January remains the only one the Commons has passed expressing what it does want, and that is what we are pursuing,” the spokeswoman said. “That remains the case after last night’s vote, and that what is what the prime minister is focused on.
“If we do not pass a deal, the legal position is that we leave without one. We do not want that to happen. And the PM is working tirelessly to make the changes so that MPs can pass the deal when we bring it back.”
May has embarked on a round of telephone diplomacy over the past few days, speaking to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and other leaders from Portugal, Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Romania.
Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, will hold a summit on Friday with all 27 EU ambassadors. Number 10 rejected reports Barclay had conceded that the withdrawal agreement text could not be reopened, saying the prime minister was determined that would be the case. That prospect has been repeatedly rejected by EU leaders and negotiators.
MPs are expected to vote again on the next stage of the prime minister’s Brexit negotiations by 27 February, though it could still be a non-legally binding motion with amendments as seen in the past two previous Commons votes.
Following the defeat on Thursday, the Scottish secretary, David Mundell, tweeted that he hoped the next binding vote on the Brexit deal would take place before that date, though sources have played down that prospect.
The Commons leader, Andrea Leadsom, said the vote on Thursday “didn’t change anything” and did not contradict the government’s strategy.
Leadsom told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Eurosceptic MPs were “concerned that in supporting the motion it might indicate that they supported taking no-deal off the table… It wasn’t to say that they no longer support the prime minister’s attempts to get the backstop renegotiated, which is the very clear vote that we had a couple of weeks ago.”
Earlier in the programme, the former attorney general Dominic Grieve said as many as six cabinet ministers could resign if the government failed to extend article 50.
“Many of them have made representations directly to the prime minister indicating their concern and telling [her that] if by the end of February there is no deal that has been got through the Commons we ought to extend [the article 50 process],” Grieve said.