Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to update ministers on her Brexit strategy when she chairs a meeting of her cabinet this morning. It comes after a weekend of speculation about her leadership and claims of a plot to oust her - something senior ministers have denied.
There have been suggestions that naming a date for her departure as PM could boost support for her Brexit deal. But Downing Street has refused to be drawn on May's future. The Sun newspaper has used its front page to urge May to set a date for her resignation to win over reluctant Tories and the Democratic Unionist Party in order to bolster the chances of her withdrawal agreement passing in a third vote.Her deal has been overwhelmingly rejected in the Commons twice, and it remains unclear whether she will bring it back a third time this week.
after she wrote to MPs saying she would only do so if there was "sufficient support".Conservative MP Nigel Evans told BBC Radio 4's Today program that May should get her deal over the line, and then resign. Evans, a joint executive secretary of the influential 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, added: "Clearly a number of people do not want the prime minister anywhere near the next phase of negotiations, which is the future trading negotiation between our and the EU."
International Trade Secretary Liam Fox told BBC Breakfast the government was "constrained by the fact that we have a leave electorate and a Parliament that leans towards remain and the government doesn't have a majority in the House of Commons".
"Changing the prime minister doesn't change any of that basic arithmetic, we have to think our way through this problem," he said."It's simply not enough to say 'if we throw the prime minister overboard things will be alright', because it really won't change anything."
Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd said she was "still committed" to working with the prime minister to get her deal through and this was "the best way to end this chaos".The cabinet meeting later follows a week in which May was forced to ask the EU for an extension to Article 50 and hundreds of thousands of people marched in central London calling for another EU referendum.
On Sunday, amid reports of a plot to replace May with a caretaker prime minister, two cabinet ministers touted as potential successors said they fully backed the PM. As senior figures dismissed talk of a "coup", Mrs May summoned leading opponents of her deal to Chequers, her country retreat, to assess whether there is enough support for it to bring it back to the Commons this week.
But after lengthy talks with prominent Brexiteers - including Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Iain Duncan Smith - there was little sign of an immediate breakthrough. This afternoon MPs are expected to back a plan to carve out parliamentary time for a series of so-called indicative votes on alternatives to May's deal, prompting concern in No 10. As many as six other options, in addition to Mrs May's deal, could be put to votes to see which are most popular.
---BBC
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