What is going to happen next week as ‘crunch’ moment awaits?

The Brexit saga has a habit of heralding “crunch” moments, only for them to fizzle out.

But some – like that next week – are so promising that they cannot be ignored.

The coming days tie together the three wiry strands of Brexit turmoil – Brussels deadlock, Tory splits and a divided parliament – into a bind so knotty that it’s hard to see how someone, somewhere doesn’t trip over it.

Due to previous votes in the Commons, Ms May promised that if she had not secured a new deal with the EU by 27 February, this Wednesday, she would place an “amendable motion” before MPs.

This is a mechanism by which other members of parliament, not just the government, can bring forward their own proposals as to what the next steps in the Brexit process should be.

Now that the prime minister has confirmed she is yet to secure the deal she wants, one of the alternative arrangements that will be put to a vote will be a plan put forward by senior Labour backbencher Yvette Cooper and ex-Tory minister Oliver Letwin to seize control of the parliamentary calendar so as to pass legislation delaying Brexit in the case of a no deal.

It is dangerous for the prime minister on two counts – in broad terms, it sets a precedent that MPs can do things that previously were only in the power of her executive branch of government; and in a more immediate sense it takes no deal off the table for now, reducing her leverage in Brussels and thus her chances of getting any agreement from EU officials on her own troubled proposals.

The last time a similar plan came forward, Ms May was able to effectively say to MPs, “please don’t vote for this now – if you give me a little more time to make progress in Brussels, I will give you another chance to back it in a few weeks if you still want to.”

At that point it worked, and enough Tory MPs voted with the government to defeat the plan, but things now look very different. Brexit day, 29 March, is so close that Ms May will find it difficult to convince MPs that they can vote for the plan in a few more weeks and still credibly implement it.

There has been increasing speculation that many members of her front bench want to back it and take a no-deal Brexit off the table as well – including three members of her cabinet, David Gauke, Greg Clark and Amber Rudd, who wrote an open letter on the issue on Saturday morning.

The prime minister could choose to sack the ministers, but that might bring her whole government down. Then again if she allows them to vote against her will on Wednesday and does nothing, it will underline the weakness of her position in London, pass proposals that will weaken her negotiating stance in Brussels and make her chances of securing a deal less likely.

A delay to Brexit also becomes almost inevitable, and other alternative outcomes – like MPs forming a cross-party coalition to secure the UK in permanent customs union – become more probable.

Ms May’s only hope of avoiding this outcome is to beseech MPs and her own ministers not to back the Cooper/Letwin plan, by showing them she is within a hair’s breadth of clinching the withdrawal agreement she wants.

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