Ministers ponder options as May warns against new Brexit poll

Rival Brexit plan alternatives continued to be floated by Cabinet ministers on Monday as Prime Minister Theresa May desperately tried to avoid the prospect of a second referendum.

Business Secretary Greg Clark said MPs should be allowed to select their preferred Brexit option if May's contentious deal failed to get through parliament.

May was set to deliver a statement to the House of Commons on Monday about her failure to extract any changes from the EU at last week’s Brussels summit.

“Let us not break faith with the British people by trying to stage another referendum,” she was expected to say, according to extracts of her comments released overnight.

“Another vote, which would do irreparable damage to the integrity of our politics, because it would say to millions who trusted in democracy that our democracy does not deliver. Another vote which would likely leave us no further forward than the last.”

In an interview with the BBC, Clark said parliament should take the lead rather than simply disagree on the merits of May's deal.

“If that (May's plan) were not to be successful, we do need to have an agreement. We can’t just have continuing uncertainty. I think parliament should be invited to say what it would agree with. That’s something I think businesses up and down the country would expect elected responsibility for, rather than just being critics,” he said.

“One of the many problems with a second referendum is it would continue that uncertainty for many more months, and would likely add to the divisiveness that has characterised the last couple of years.”

Trade Secretary Liam Fox on Sunday also said he said would favour a series of non-binding free votes.

“Personally, I wouldn’t have a huge problem with parliament as a whole having a say on what the options were,” he said, adding that the idea was “not one that cabinet has discussed yet, but, when you look at the options that we have, you’ve got to recognise that there a limited number of real-world options here”.

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May endured a tough week after pulling the key vote on her deal when she conceded it would be defeated heavily in parliament after MPs expressed serious reservations about the Irish backstop - the insurance policy against a hard border with Ireland if no free trade deal is reached with the EU.

She then faced a vote of no confidence from her own MPs, which she fended off but only after agreeing to step down before the 2022 General Election. A trip to Brussels completed the trifecta of misery for the prime minister when the EU stood its ground and refused to renegotiate the deal.

On Sunday May found herself in a bad-tempered spat with with former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sunday after he called for a second referendum and criticised her deal.

“For Tony Blair to go to Brussels and seek to undermine our negotiations by advocating for a second referendum is an insult to the office he once held and the people he once served,” May said.