Will Theresa May's Handling of Brexit Split the Tory Party?

Last week on 'Brexit, The Never-Beginning Story': Mystifyingly incurious PM In Name Only, Theresa May, slumped to an unprecedented third defeat for a Withdrawal Agreement that could not be more dead if Parliament had been voting to strap it to a gurney and inject potassium chloride into its veins.

MPs then set up an entirely rival Parliament, under the rule of Sir Oliver Letwin, who proclaimed himself Supreme Killbot Godhead rival to the Prime Minister. But after all eight of its proposed solutions failed, this new MP-controlled "Parliament B" was left looking dumber than if it was composed of 650 clones of Liz Truss.

Now, in a historic sequel no one wanted to see, the two rival Parliaments will end the week duking it out for supremacy. Yes, it’s Batman vs. Superman time – a Freddy vs. Jason, Giant Douche vs. Turd Sandwich moment for the ages.

Having given May her go, today MPs are back to voting on their own proposals. This week, Speaker John Bercow has selected four from last week’s eight: Ken Clarke’s Customs Union proposal – bringing back the idea of a permanent common external tariff with the EU. Pros: it gets rid of the Dreaded Backstop. Cons: it means Brexit is partly futile because independent UK trade deals are impossible. Then Common Market 2.0 - an even softer Brexit involving also staying in bits of the Single Market. There’s also yet another attempt to offload a “People’s Vote” onto a reluctant people. And finally, one on revoking Article 50 altogether.

Even though these are the same ideas as last week, one may still win. I know. It sounds weird. It looks even weirder when you write it down. But we are all working with what we’ve got here. Last time, Ken Clarke's Customs Union proposal got closest – only six votes from a majority. So everyone who pretends to know about these things has decided it must be capable of getting a majority this time.

On Tuesday, Theresa May will meet with her Cabinet ­– now barely a cabinet, more just the 20-odd Tories who are best at pretending they don’t despise her – to decide how to respond to her latest abject humiliation. More tea, perhaps?

At this point, half her Cabinet may decide to stop pretending they don’t despise her – but the exciting part is it’s not yet clear which half. If she decides she will act on Parliament’s instructions and go for a softer Brexit, then it will be the Leavers who go: Liam Fox, Michael Gove, Liam Fox again.

If she decides to ignore Parliament’s instructions, it could be all the Remainers: Amber Rudd, Jeremy Hunt, David Gauke. Either way, no great loss to humanity.

On Wednesday, Supreme Killbot Godhead Letwin’s Parliament reconvenes, to consider its next step. If May has said she won’t go to Brussels to renegotiate, then there’s talk that they may pass a law compelling the PM to do things their way. Wait – so now Parliament runs the Executive? One more hilarious subversion we barely have time to inhale, one more vast constitutional crisis to throw on the stack.

On Thursday, the parallel universe track lines will switch back to May when Meaningful Vote 4 is hauled back into Parliament. Yes, just when you thought the concept of a “meaningful vote” had been squeezed so hard that every single bone of meaning had been wrung out of it – when you had begun muttering "Meaningful means Meaningful" like Wittgenstein on NOS – well here we are again.

Only, this time there’s a season finale twist. There will be a "run-off" between May’s Withdrawal Agreement and, it is hoped, the top-ranking plan from the Letwin indicative votes (probably Ken’s Customs Union). The implication being that one of the two rival plans will "win" Brexit. But hang on – Parliament doesn’t work like Gladiators, does it? It does not. In fact, MPs will be voting yes or no on whether to approve each proposition in turn – so they could just as easily reject both. Or even approve both. Which, considering everything Brexit has taught us about bathos, sounds about right.

Which is why today’s vote will be pivotal. If Ken Clarke’s Customs Union deal can secure a half-decent majority (via Labour backing), then Brexiteers are staring into the abyss. That would mean May’s eternal mantra, of "it’s my deal or something you’ll hate even more", comes back into play. The "something you'll hate even more" – a softer Brexit – becomes more real. Last week, her deal lost by a mere 58, when Brexiteer after Brexiteer came in from their Japanese forts in the jungle: Rees-Mogg, Johnson, Raab. Only two dozen bitter-enders remained in the wilderness.

In that scenario, they might be scared into backing May’s deal. But even then, May needs every single vote, and that would be to assume that the DUP’s ten MPs could also be brought round. The stakes are very different for Northern Ireland. On Sunday, the DUP’s Sammy Wilson announced that they’d reject her deal "even if it was brought back a thousand times". It’s hard to see any way back from that kind of rhetoric.

In other words, we are now at a point where another ironic, improbable thing may be about to happen on Thursday – Ultra-Brexiteers screaming at the DUP to back May’s deal, in order to avoid the much worse outcome of a Customs Union.

For all the endless fiddling over backstops, May’s real decision this week on where she ends up in the history books might not even be about Brexit itself. It could be as "The Woman Who Split The Tory Party". Among Conservative voters, No Deal is polling above 60 percent; across talk radio, the narrative of Brexit Betrayed has exploded in the long angry hours since the 29th of March.

The showdown between Parliamentary factions is as much a showdown with the Tory grassroots. Tomorrow, May will have a choice to make on that score too. Risk splitting the party from its electorate by not delivering Real Brexit? Or risk shattering the Parliamentary party by delivering a hard Brexit?

Looks like we’re gonna need a bigger constitutional clusterfuck.

@gavhaynes