Theresa May sat alone
while European leaders
decided the timing of
Britain's departure
from the European Union.
Here with me is Robert
Shrimsley to explain what looks
like a decidedly dicey deal.
Robert, when is
Britain going to leave?
It's still very much
up in the air, Lionel.
The European Union
has given Britain
two new dates for departure.
The first is April the 12th, if
Theresa May cannot get her deal
through, possibly next week.
And the second is May 22, if
she does get her deal through.
And that's the amount
of time it needs
to put the mechanics in place.
So we're still very,
very much up in the air.
We were hurtling towards the
cliff edge a couple of days
ago.
That's crashing out.
Yes.
With no-deal.
You know, we were eight
days from the cliff
edge with no-deal looking
a serious possibility.
No-deal is still
definitely an option.
But the date has pushed
back a little bit.
So we've got a
couple more weeks.
But at the moment, of course,
this is a very fluid situation.
But Mrs May's deal looks, it's
against the odds, isn't it,
of passage?
It's very hard to
see, as things stand,
how she gets this deal through.
It's an amazing reversal
in the last seven days
of her position.
Seven days ago,
she had a strategy.
And the strategy was to squeeze
her own Brexit hardliners
and say, look, it's
running away from us.
If you don't vote
for my deal, we're
going to get a soft
Brexit or a delay.
And that was beginning to work.
They were beginning to crack.
In the space of a couple of days
at the beginning of this week,
she has flipped her
strategy on its head,
if indeed she still
has a strategy.
She's now appeasing
her hardliners
and essentially trying to
frighten the rest of parliament
into backing her deal for
fear of a no-deal exit.
And should we blame the
Speaker, John Bercow,
for citing a 1604 precedent,
whereby you can't just
keep coming back with the
same deal for approval
in the House of Commons?
I think there were
four decisive steps
to the way Theresa May turned.
And that was one of them.
The week before, MPs
had failed yet again
to seize control of the
parliamentary timetable.
And she looked at
them and thought,
you guys are never going
to get your act together
on an alternative deal.
The next day, nearly
200 of her own MPs
voted against an
extension of Article 50.
Then John Bercow's
ruling came up,
stopped her from putting
the meaningful vote again
before the European summit.
And then finally, her own
cabinet turned on her and said,
we cannot support a long delay.
And the chief whip
advised her clearly
that the party would
be broken if she tried
to force through a long delay.
And I think Theresa May has
essentially changed position.
She now believes
that a no-deal Brexit
is the second best option
after her own deal.
So let's just assume that
her deal is voted down,
obviously, speculation.
Does she then have to resign?
It's very difficult to
see how she can stay on,
and indeed, why
she would want to.
Because she has
said she does not
want to oversee a long delay.
And the only alternative to a
long delay, if her deal falls,
is no deal.
I think she might be prepared
to carry that through.
But what will
happen in parliament
is that MPs are going to
give themselves the chance
to vote on alternative options.
The staying in
the single market,
the so-called Norway option,
permanent customs union,
second referendum,
all the other options.
If one of those were to get
a majority in parliament,
and it has to be said,
MPs have proved very inept
at solidifying...
And there isn't a
cross-party movement either.
If one of them were
to get a majority,
I think, and her
policy's been voted down,
it's very hard to see
how she can stay on
or why she would want to.
And what happens then?
Does the deputy prime
minister step in?
Or do we have to have
a leadership election?
No.
I mean, the Conservatives,
unlike the Labour party,
don't have an official deputy.
So although David
Lidington is often
referred to as the
de facto deputy,
it's de facto, not de jure.
And the way it works
is that she would
say she was resigning
as prime minister
but would stay on
as prime minister
until such time as
the Conservatives
choose another leader.
So she would be unfettered
but also without any power.
It would be very, very messy.
The one thing that
could happen, I suppose,
is that parliament votes to
attach the future direction
to her deal.
In the political
declaration they say,
we now want that to say
it's Norway, or it's
permanent customs
union, and then we'll
vote through your deal.
Or it could say, we'll
vote through your deal
if we can attach a
referendum to it.
So at that point,
she might think
it was worth just
staying on a bit longer
to take it over the line.
But it's very, very
messy, very difficult.
And finally, the other
point is that it's very hard
to see how a government
not committed to a policy
of this importance could
then legislate it through.
The Tories don't believe in
the Norway option, so how could
they actually take that through?
You could well then be
heading for an election.
So Robert, I'm going
to put you on the spot.
It's not a football question.
Are we likely to have an early
election, general election?
I think the odds of an
election sometime this year
are going up all of the time.
Most paths lead to an election.
The only one that
I think doesn't is
if MPs solidify around her
deal, which, as we've said,
does not look very
likely at the moment.
Robert Shrimsley,
thank you very much.
