Labour MPs may have to save the nation from a no-deal Brexit – and that’s terrifying

It looks as if the prime minister may be approaching the point where she is prepared to call the bluff not just of her cabinet Eurosceptics but also the DUP

Every now and again history arrives at one of those hinge moments when the country could go one way or the other. There was one in 2003, when Peter Goldsmith, the attorney general, decided it would be lawful after all to join the US invasion of Iraq. There was another in 2010, when Nick Clegg faced a choice between going right or left: a coalition with David Cameron, or an admittedly more difficult coalition with Labour.

Now we are approaching another, when the decisions made or not made over the next few days or weeks will set the country on one of two (or possibly three) very different future paths.

Theresa May’s plan was to ask the cabinet to sign up to a compromise on Tuesday before going to the Brussels summit on Wednesday. There she hoped to arrange a special summit in November, at which the Brexit deal would be done.

That now looks unlikely. Negotiators in Brussels have not quite bridged the gap between the two sides, while cabinet ministers have resisted the compromise May appeared poised to make. That means the timetable might slip to the EU summit in December or, at the very latest, a special summit in mid-January.

The problem is the same as it was four months ago, when David Davis threatened to resign as Brexit secretary unless the legally binding commitment to keep the Irish border open was time-limited. May refused: the form of words she agreed with Davis said merely that “the UK expects” it to last until December 2021. Davis eventually resigned a month later.

Now his successor, Dominic Raab, has said that the Irish backstop “would have to be finite, it would have to be short, and it would have to be time-limited”. He was reflecting the views of other cabinet ministers at a meeting on Thursday, at which May “chaired as opposed to opined” according to James Forsyth, the well-informed political editor of The Spectator.

Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, also insisted on an end date for the Irish border pledge. Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, was “harder than you’d expect”, according to Forsyth. May could still try to push her position through the full meeting of cabinet on Tuesday, knowing that she has a majority of loyalists as she did at the Chequers meeting in July.

That risks resignations. As well as Fox, Andrea Leadsom, Penny Mordaunt and Esther McVey are supposed to be thinking about quitting. I shall believe it when I see it. Their departures would disrupt the prime minister but not dislodge her. Raab could make things more awkward for May by being the second Brexit secretary to resign. Michael Gove, as a leader of the Leave campaign, is another with some leverage. But even if, as some hard Brexiteers claim, nine cabinet ministers resigned over an open-ended customs union, which I do not believe will happen, it would not alter the fundamentals of May’s position.

The central fact is that there is a majority in parliament for a form of Brexit that keeps us in a close economic relationship with the EU. It has always been true that, for May to use that majority, she has to face down the hard Brexiteers in her party – and possibly the DUP too – and rely on Labour votes. It has also always been true that she would be best doing that at the last moment. But that means leaving the crucial bit of the negotiation with the EU to the last moment, which, given that it too has to compromise to make a deal possible, risks the whole thing collapsing and the UK leaving without a deal.

We are inching towards the moment of truth. A “government source” told The Times today that staying in “a form of customs union with no time limit” could get through parliament – even if the DUP opposed it.

The DUP could make things difficult for a minority government, especially if it carried out its threat to vote against the Budget. But it cannot bring her down as Conservative leader, as long as half of Tory MPs are prepared to back her, and it is unlikely to try to force a general election, whatever its MPs say. It looks as if the prime minister may be approaching the point where she is prepared to call the bluff not just of her cabinet Eurosceptics but also the DUP.

If she does, the nation’s future will be decided by Labour MPs. Parliament may face a choice between Theresa May’s deal – if she gets one – and the cost of leaving the EU without a deal at all. There is a third option, of trying to abandon Brexit and stay in the EU. I still don’t think there is a majority in parliament for that – although Johnson, Davis, Raab and Gove ought to realise that miscalculations on their part could make it more likely.

But if it comes down to a choice between a deal that keeps us close to the EU and a no-deal Brexit, I cannot see how Labour MPs could put some twisted notion of party advantage ahead of the national interest.