Brexit foes corner May as crunch vote looms

Bloomberg

Theresa May is surrounded.
On one side, the UK prime minister has the European Union, sharpening its knives to defend the club of 27 remaining members against British “cherry picking” during Brexit talks. On the other side is her own Conservative party, split into two feuding tribes, either one of which could topple her from power.
It’s the domestic battle that was expected to come to a crunch again in Parliament on Monday, with crucial clashes that will decide how much power legislators get to shape the final Brexit deal.
Euroskeptics in May’s Tory party fear that the pro-EU wing, led by former attorney general Dominic Grieve, will win. Some privately warn they could move to oust May if Parliament votes this week to give itself the ability to force her back to the negotiating table, rather than allowing Britain to leave the EU with
no deal. The most ardent Brexit backers would be happy to exit without an agreement, while Grieve warned he’d oppose that, even if it led to the “collapse” of May’s government.
“As Parliament gradually assumes a bigger role in the process, the debates have made a ‘no deal’ exit next March less likely and a softer Brexit more likely,” Mujtaba Rahman, managing director at Eurasia Group, said. “As a result, a leadership challenge to May has also become more likely, because hardline Brexiteers fear they are being outmaneuvered by the prime minister who tiptoes towards a package acceptable to the soft Brexit majority in Parliament.”
In the year since May unexpectedly lost her majority in the UK election, the pro-EU faction in the Conservative party has been gaining ground. It won the argument for a “status quo” transition period to allow time for businesses to prepare for life outside the EU.
May has concluded she has no mandate for an extreme Brexit. Instead, she’s signalled a willingness to soften her original red lines, allowing the EU’s common tariff rules to continue to apply as a backstop plan to avoid a hard border in Ireland, accepting an ongoing role for the European Court of Justice, and tying the UK to EU regulations in key sectors such as chemicals and aerospace.
This trend towards a soft Brexit has alarmed euroskeptic campaigners including Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who fears the UK could end up forever in the EU’s orbit, rather than breaking free to strike trade deals with other countries around the world. May used an interview on BBC to align herself with the most famous pledge of the pro-Brexit campaign: using money that won’t be spent on EU membership to inject billions of pounds into the state-run National Health Service.