THERESA May’s husband Philip will persuade her to resign if she fails to find a majority for a Brexit deal within a month, ministers now believe.
Even No10 loyalists think the PM will find it impossible to overcome “such a head of steam” against her from Tory MPs and activists if the crippling deadlock continues into June.
Her closest confidante, financier Mr May, will instead step in and talk her into standing down rather than risk the public humiliation of losing a vote of all 800 senior activists on June 15.
The prediction gives her less than five weeks to prove she can pass the Brexit bill or face a No10 exit ahead of the party’s emergency general meeting.
It comes after two opinion polls spelled fresh disaster for the Tories as they slumped to fourth place on just 11per cent for the euro elections on May 23.
Pressure was also growing on the PM last night to draw Labour talks for a cross party Brexit deal to a close by setting a deadline.
One loyal senior minister told The Sun: “Such a head of steam is now building to just get anyone in instead of her now that it’s close to becoming inevitable.
Most Cabinet ministers have given up any hope of a deal before euro elections a week on Thursday
“If she can’t find a majority for Brexit in the next couple of weeks, does she really risk abject humiliation at the national convention on June 15?
“Or does Philip sit down with a whisky and tell her it’s time. I suspect he’ll tell her not to put herself through that, and knowing her, she won’t want to put the party through that either.”
Brexit talks with Labour resume for a seventh week this afternoon with another showdown meeting today between frontbench negotiators.
But most Cabinet ministers have given up any hope of a deal before euro elections a week on Thursday.
Instead, one senior Tory said last night that Mrs May “has to focus Labour’s minds” by setting a deadline for the talks or risk them going on for weeks, and inflicting even more damage on the party.
In the two opinion polls yesterday, the Tories and Labour also slumped to their lowest joint share of the Westminster vote ever, analysis of two disastrous new opinion polls revealed.
A ComRes poll put Labour on 27% and the Tories on 19% – their lowest rating since 1995.
Brexit frustration means just 46% now saying they would vote for one of the two main parties at a general election – almost half that of the 2017 vote just two years ago, where the Tories and Labour together notched up 82.4%.
But in one ray of better news for the Tories, a new YouGov poll today reveals the public think that both parties will be dead within a decade.
Just 13% think the Brexit Party is here to stay, with 63% think it will fade from politics within 10 years.
And only 10% think Change UK will be a permanent fixture in British politics, with 56% thinking it too will be gone in a decade.
Education Secretary Damian Hinds trying to shrug off the expected wipeout of Tory MEPs on May 23 by dubbing it “the ultimate protest vote opportunity” and predicting people will “use it as something of a free vote”.
The Cabinet minister also confirmed the Tories will not have an official launch for their campaign for the poll and publish no manifesto for it either, a first.
But Prisons Minister Robert Buckland heaped blame for the Brexit shambles on MPs instead, insisting: “It’s for Parliament to get its act together and govern.
“We need to remember it’s Parliament in the dock here, and it must restore trust in democracy.”
