Theresa May has refused to rule out resigning as Prime Minister should MPs reject her Brexit deal.
In an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live on Friday afternoon, May was asked three times whether she would quit if, as expected, the Commons votes down her plan for exiting the European Union.
The PM said: “I’m not thinking about me. I am thinking about getting a deal through that delivers for the people of this country.”
May faces a huge challenge to get the Brexit deal approved by MPs when the Commons is asked to vote for it in December.
Both pro-Brexit and pro-EU Tory MPs have pledged to oppose it. As has Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.
May said if her deal was rejected then the UK would leave the EU with no deal at all.
“Personally there is no question of no Brexit,” she said. “As far as I am concerned the UK is leaving the European Union on March 29, 2019.”
She added: “If this deal doesn’t go through we are back at square one. What we end up with is more uncertainty and more division.”
The warning was a return to May’s longstanding position on why MPs should back her. She recently also suggested if parliament voted down her deal then Brexit might not happen at all.
Asked if she could win the vote, the PM said: “My job is to persuade people. I believe this is the right deal for the UK. My job is to persuade people in Parliament of that view.”
May also refused to say whether she believed her Brexit deal was better than EU membership. The PM campaigned for Remain in the run-up to the referendum.
Asked for a simple “yes” or “no” answer, May said: “It’s going to be different.”
Former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab this morning said the government’s deal was worse the EU membership. “I’m not going to advocate staying in the EU,” the pro-Brexit Conservative told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.
“But, if you just presented me terms, this deal or EU membership, because we would effectively be bound by the same rules but without the control or voice over them, yes, I think this would be even worse than that.”
Downing Street this morning denied the government was planning to force MPs to vote a second time on the deal if it was rejected the first time.
Asked if this was its strategy, the prime minister’s spokesman said: “absolutely not”.