Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Theresa May prepares to quit after Cabinet mutiny… Theresa May is expected to announce her departure from No 10 tomorrow after a cabinet mutiny over her Brexit plan. The prime minister defied an attempt to force her from office last night, insisting that she would spend today campaigning in the European elections. Her allies believe, however, that she will declare that she is leaving after a meeting with Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee. Mrs May was finally cornered after cabinet ministers joined the Tory revolt over her offer to facilitate the option of a second referendum. Last night Andrea Leadsom resigned as leader of the Commons, becoming the 36th minister to quit Mrs May’s government. She left to avoid having to lay out the timetable for legislation today that she and other Brexiteer ministers oppose. A vote on the withdrawal bill is officially planned for June 7. – The Times (£) Tories expect Theresa May to be gone within days – FT (£) …with the PM under siege as ministers turn on her and Andrea Leadsom quits Cabinet Theresa May is under siege in Downing Street after her ministers turned on her and Andrea Leadsom resigned from the Cabinet. The Prime Minister was accused of bunkering herself in with “the sofa against the door” after she refused to meet Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid who were expected to confront her over her “disastrous” new Brexit deal. Ministers and backbenchers told her she had “run out of road” and spent the day urging her to quit before polls open in today’s European elections, in the hope it would limit the scale of the expected Tory defeat. An eve of election poll put the party on just seven per cent, which would potentially deliver their worst ever result. However, the Prime Minister was still clinging to power after a day in which Mrs May had faced three separate plots to oust her. The pressure on her increased dramatically with the resignation of Ms Leadsom, the Leader of the House. Ms Leadsom, whose job is to announce Government business in the House of Commons, said she could not “fulfil my duty” by proposing a Brexit bill that “I fundamentally oppose”. – Telegraph (£) Pressure grows on May to quit as Leadsom resigns over Brexit deal – Guardian Andrea Leadsom resigns over Brexit delivery doubts – The Times (£) Andrea Leadsom quits over Brexit leaving deluded Theresa May clinging on to power as Cabinet deserts her – The Sun > Last night on BrexitCentral: Andrea Leadsom quits Cabinet over government’s handling of Brexit – her resignation letter in full May sparks Brexiteer fury by killing off Cabinet debate on No Deal… Theresa May incensed Brexit-backing Ministers by killing off a Cabinet debate on No Deal despite calls for a “step change” in preparation, The Sun can reveal. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay made an impassioned plea for the Government to increase contingency planning – arguing that a cliff-edge exit on October 31 would be “far worse” for business than March 29. He warned warehousing shortages would be acute in the run up to Christmas. But the PM stunned Brexiteers in Tuesday’s Cabinet by cutting him and postponing a vote on No Deal work until after the Whitsun break. The PM went on to stun Eurosceptics yesterday by arguing a No Deal Brexit could threaten the future of the Union – and leave Britain more vulnerable to terrorists. – The Sun …and it was a surprise new clause in the Withdrawal Agreement Bill that proved the final straw for many ministers… Theresa May triggered a fresh Cabinet revolt on Wednesday after explicitly laying out the path to a legally-binding second referendum in her Brexit deal. Ministers on Wednesday accused the Prime Minister of attempting to “bounce” her Cabinet after they read the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in full for the first time. Several ministers including Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Michael Gove and Liz Truss – all potential leadership contenders – felt it went further than Cabinet had agreed on Tuesday, with Andrea Leadsom resigning from the Cabinet and suggesting Theresa May should quit over the new Brexit deal. A new clause in the bill, seen by The Daily Telegraph, goes as far as proposing an amendment for MPs to vote on that would trigger a second referendum. The proposed amendment states: “That this House agrees there should be another referendum before the withdrawal bill is ratified.” It goes on to state that it would be “provided for by an Act of Parliament”, meaning that it would be legally binding. – Telegraph (£) …although May insists a vote on the Bill will go ahead as planned Theresa May has vowed to put her derided Brexit deal to to MPs just hours after a leading Cabinet Minister suggested it could be pulled. Appearing on BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Wednesday morning, environment secretary Michael Gove was asked if the Withdrawal Agreement Bill would still be put to MPs in early June given the hostile reception to May’s “new deal”. He refused to guarantee it would still be voted on in the week commencing 3 June, saying there would be “a period of reflection and analysis” after the Bill was published. However, appearing before MPs on Wednesday afternoon, the Prime Minister doubled down on her planned timetable, and also contradicted Gove’s claim the Bill would be published later today – saying it instead would be made public on Friday. During a grilling by MPs less than 24 hours after setting out a plan for a vote on a new referendum on whether the UK should leave the EU, May was urged to reconsider forcing what would be a fourth vote on her Brexit deal. Conservative MP Nicky Morgan, chair of the Treasury Select Committee, said: “I will probably vote for the Bill when it comes back but please can I ask the Prime Minster to reflect very carefully on whether it should be put to Parliament, because the consequences of it not being passed are very serious.” – City A.M. > WATCH: Theresa May’s statement to the Commons yesterday Jacob Rees-Mogg says the PM’s Brexit deal ‘will suffer another record-breaking defeat if it returns’… Jacob Rees-Mogg has said he believes Theresa May’s new Brexit deal will be defeated by an even greater majority than the record breaking loss suffered in Meaningful Vote one. The backbencher told ITV News Political Editor Robert Peston’s Wednesday evening programme he thinks “the mood has turned very sharply against” the PM since that vote. He said: “I don’t think there’s an occasion in history when a prime minister has lost anything like so heavily and has not recognised that that’s a loss of confidence from the House of Commons and has not allowed someone else to take over.” He added: “I think, if she were to put the bill in the form she’s proposed in the next week or two she would by even more than 230.” One thing getting in the way of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill being presented to the Commons for a fourth time is the resignation of Andrea Leadsom as House leader on Wednesday evening. – ITV News …while Dominic Grieve threatens to quit the Tories to block a no-deal Brexit Dominic Grieve has sensationally suggested he could quit his party, potentially bringing down the Government, in order to stop a no deal Brexit. The senior backbencher was speaking on the ITV Peston politics show. Theresa May is under intense pressure to resign as Prime Minister, and could be replaced by an advocate of a no deal EU exit. Yesterday Commons leader Andrea Leadsom resigned from the Cabinet saying she no longer trusts the Government to implement Brexit. Speaking to ITV host Robert Peston Mr Grieve commented: “I’ve always said that I think taking the UK out of the EU without a deal would be catastrophic and I would do everything in my power to prevent it. Because the question is what do I have to do to stop it. I would have to do everything I can.” The Conservative Party currently has a working majority, with the DUP’s support, of just seven MPs. – Express UK heads to the polls for European election today… Voters are heading to the polls for the European Parliament elections. Seventy-three members, known as MEPs, will be elected in nine constituencies in England, and one each in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each region has a different number of representatives based on its population – ranging from three MEPs in the North East and Northern Ireland to 10 MEPs in the South East. Polling stations in the UK are open until 22:00 BST. The Netherlands is also voting on Thursday while voting in other EU nations will take place at various times over the next three days. The results will be announced once all EU nations have voted, with the voting process expected to be completed by 22:00 BST on Sunday. – BBC News …with Tory and Labour chiefs tearing into Nigel Farage as they face a thrashing from his Brexit Party… Desperate Tory and Labour chiefs attacked Nigel Farage in a last-ditch bid to stop him trouncing them at the euro elections, as the nation goes to the polls tomorrow. Final surveys put his new Brexit Party on target for a clear victory, as voters punish the Conservatives for failing to take Britain out of the EU as promised. The UK is only taking part in Thursday’s elections, to elect 73 MEPs to the European Parliament in Brussels, because the planned departure date of March 29 was delayed. Labour was also facing a drubbing for its fence-sitting on Brexit, with Remain supporters backing the Liberal Democrats and Leave voters going for Farage’s outfit. One poll for YouGov put the Brexit Party on 37 per cent, the Lib Dems second on 19 per cent, Labour on 13 per cent, the Greens on 12 per cent and the Tories down at 7 per cent. – The Sun …while George Osborne’s newspaper backs the Lib Dems as Tory Remainers flee May’s party George Osborne today backed the Lib Dems in his newspaper as Remainer Tories fled to the pro-EU party. The ex-Chancellor used the Evening Standard to urge a vote for Vince Cable’s party in tomorrow’s Euro elections. He also endorsed the Tories – despite his long-running feud with Theresa May. Other Conservative grandees have joined Mr Osborne in switching their support to the Lib Dems in protest at the Tories’ pro-Brexit stance. The former Chancellor worked closely with Nick Clegg and other Liberal Democrats during the Coalition years. The Evening Standard wrote today that the failure of Labour and Change UK to launch a decent challenge “has left the door open to the Liberal Democrats”. The paper added: “They had the courage from the start to say the referendum result was a mistake — and Britain needed to think again. As a result, voters have started to think again about them. We wish them well.” Mr Osborne has been plotting to remove the PM from power since the 2017 snap election where she lost her majority. – The Sun On BrexitCentral today: Andrew Allison: Why Brexiteers should vote for the Brexit Party today Rupert Matthews: Why Brexiteers should vote Conservative today John Mills: Why Brexiteers should vote Labour today Macron wants to avoid Brexit ‘polluting’ EU after 31 October France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has said he wants to avoid Brexit “polluting” the EU after 31 October, and that European leaders need to know when the UK’s prolonged departure will come to an end. In April, Macron stood alone at a meeting of the EU27 in championing a short Brexit extension in opposition to those willing to give the UK until next year to complete its withdrawal. The October deadline for the British government to have ratified the withdrawal agreement or face a no-deal exit was a compromise position brokered with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. Macron, in a sign of the frustration in Brussels at the risk posed to its future agenda by the UK’s continued membership, told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir the EU needed a clear end date to the continuing saga. The French president, who is running behind Marine Le Pen in polls of voting intentions in this weekend’s European elections, said: “In the case of Brexit, you just have to know at some point whether it stops or not. If we follow the logic of saying that it scares us and that we are prepared not to respect the British vote, we betray both the British and the interest of the British.” – Guardian Britain should quit EU as soon as possible and not hold second referendum, top Macron ally blasts – The Sun Second referendum would vote Leave again, Macron’s EU election chief says – Independent Nick Timothy: This is a sorry end for a Prime Minister who never believed in Brexit “All political lives,” said Enoch Powell, “end in failure.” For Theresa May, the agony of the ending, and the failure, has been drawn out for longer than usual. But in the coming days, it is certain that her premiership will draw to a close. The Cabinet’s patience has been finally snapped by the Prime Minister’s latest tone-deaf Brexit proposal. Andrea Leadsom has resigned. MPs say there isn’t a single colleague who thinks the PM should continue. Any Conservative made nervous by the prospect of regicide will find their minds made up by the European elections. The Government’s failure to deliver Brexit – and its continued attempts to deliver a Brexit deal seen by many Leavers as a betrayal – has unleashed Nigel Farage and his Brexit Party. They will top the polls today, and the Tories will be lucky to win 10 per cent of the vote. It will be their worst-ever performance in a national election. – Nick Timothy for the Telegraph (£) Owen Paterson: The Cabinet has been complicit in this disaster and must bear its share of the blame To say that the Prime Minister’s woeful “Charing Cross” speech backfired is the biggest understatement since Jim Lovell contacted NASA from Apollo 13 to tell them: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” Yet it is easy to see why the backlash has been so strong. During the referendum campaign, the Government spent £9.3 million of taxpayers’ money telling every household that “this is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide.” After the referendum, in which more people voted Leave than have ever voted for anything in British history, the 2017 Conservative manifesto pledged that the UK would leave the Single Market, the Customs Union and the jurisdiction of the European Court. Page 36 said that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” I wrote in this newspaper two weeks ago that Theresa May had reneged on all but one of her promises. Allowing for a second referendum in her Withdrawal Agreement Bill, as she announced on Tuesday night as part of her “ten-point offer”, was the final betrayal. – Owen Paterson MP for the Telegraph (£) Nicky Morgan: The game is up, Prime Minister. Let someone else take on the Brexit Bill As the smoke-filled rooms get smokier and the huddles of MPs get more conspiratorial it is too easy to ignore the fact that at the heart of the Conservative government’s travails is a huge national policy question which hasn’t yet been resolved. But it is the announcements about the forthcoming Withdrawal Agreement Bill (otherwise known as the WAB) which have precipitated the latest crisis about Theresa May’s leadership. How is it possible for the PM to give a speech under the banner of “Seeking common ground in parliament” not in parliament? And how is it possible for there to be a speech about a bill when that bill can’t be published for two days due to EU election purdah? Who makes or signs off on all these handling decisions? – Nicky Morgan MP for The Times (£) Andrea Jenkyns: In the name of God, Prime Minister – just go When Theresa May became Prime Minister in the summer of 2016, many Conservatives were hoping she would have been the one to deliver Brexit. A difficult challenge, but one that would imprint her name in British History. Now, over 1045 days later, the situation is dire. No one can doubt the good intentions and the capacity of resistance of May, but her decisions and her actions have left the country and the Conservative party in an appalling state: Brexit was not delivered on time, her Withdrawal Agreement has been rejected multiple times, Parliament is paralysed, our international credibility is at its lowest and loyal Conservative members and voters are shifting to the Brexit Party in numbers. – Andrea Jenkyns MP for the Telegraph (£) Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: No European election ever deflects the EU deep state one inch from its rigid course The election of 170 part-time dilettantes from the eurosceptic Left and Right might shake up French or Italian politics. It will change absolutely nothing in the governing structure of the EU. Trumpian ideologue Steve Bannon deems the European Parliament vote this week to be “one of the most important elections ever” but he has never tangled in earnest with Germano-European deep state. The EU’s permanent machinery will reassert iron control once the noise has subsided. Italy’s Matteo Salvini does understand the challenge. He knows that the whole Gramscian superstructure must be subverted to break the stranglehold of the EU’s political Curia. But the Lega strongman is in too much of a hurry. The long slow march through the institutions is not for him. – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard for the Telegraph (£) David Aaronovitch: Lib Dem revival is more luck than judgement A lot of people probably thought, until recently, that Sir Vince Cable was dead. For most of the time after he took over as leader of the Liberal Democrats in July 2017 the septuagenarian Yorkshireman had disappeared from public view, reappearing only (it seemed) to tell us when he would be giving up the job and never reappearing again. This seemed appropriate for a party that had been reduced in the 2017 election to 7.4 per cent of the vote and 12 seats. Lib Dems vanished from mainstream radio and television discussions. The waters closed over them. Then, suddenly, there they were again, breaking the surface, waving. As far as I can discover, no one predicted it. Expert forecasts had anticipated 350 council seat gains for them in the recent local elections and up to 600 for Labour. But Cable’s party gained 700 seats, the anti-Brexit Greens nearly 200 and Labour lost over 80. The “had this been a general election” projected vote-share (one of those exercises psephologists so enjoy) put the two main parties on 28 per cent each, the Lib Dems on nearly 20 and “others” on 25. – David Aaronovitch for The Times (£) Ann Widdecombe: A simple solution is beyond politicians – we voted out They just don’t get it, do they? Politicians tell us they want to remain in the EU. They seem to forget that was the question three years ago, not now. The nation said leave. Next they tell us nobody realised how complicated it all is. Actually, it is pretty simple. The complications have arisen because Theresa May has made a consistent mess of it all. We did not have to join and we do not have to stay and it is no more difficult than that. Then they bleat that the future is uncertain outside the EU. The future is always uncertain and will be both inside or outside the EU but what we can say with certainty is that the prospects are very bright outside. Our fishermen can actually fish our own waters without having to dump vast catches for exceeding EU quotas or watch as other countries come in and take our fish by EU law. The industry is behind Brexit for a reason: the future beckons brightly. – Ann Widdecombe for the Express The Sun: A huge Brexit Party victory will be the election kicking the Tories and Labour deserve Today voters will give the Tories and Labour an election kicking like never before. They will richly deserve it. The Conservatives have failed catastrophically on Brexit. We should have left the EU on March 29. We’re still in. Labour have angered Leavers AND Remainers with their lies and trickery. So we entirely understand Leave-backing Sun readers casting a protest vote for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. It is hard to justify anything else. This election should not even be taking place. We have one caveat: Tory MEP Dan Hannan would be a loss. The Westminster chaos is not his doing. The stalwart Leave campaigner is the brightest and best-informed MEP we have. The Brexit vote might have been lost without him. But Hannan may too be swept away by the tide. The polls already had Farage miles ahead even before Theresa May’s final, suicidal capitulation over the second referendum and customs union. A majority of MPs, most notably the “people’s vote” brigade, have spent three years trashing our democracy. A huge Brexit Party victory ought to scare the living daylights out of them. – The Sun Brexit in Brief 179 states trade successfully with the EU with no customs union or single market membership – John Redwood’s Diary Change UK pays for Facebook ad blitz amid dismal EU poll ratings – Guardian How Ofcom rules could see Britain in the midst of political crisis, but with broadcasters blocked from reporting on it – Telegraph (£)