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PM's days numbered as she pits the people against Parliament

U.K. PM May Stuck in Brexit Fight Amid Reports of Short Delay
U.K. PM May Stuck in Brexit Fight Amid Reports of Short Delay

The prime minister faces a severe backlash after her late-night address to the country sought to pit the public against Parliament, in what was branded as a 'despicable' and 'disgraceful' speech by MPs from across Britain's political parties.

Dame Margaret Beckett, in an interview on LBC was furious, accusing Mrs May of 'lying to the British people'.

"That woman has wasted weeks and weeks and weeks delaying decisions that she thought might go against her and then she blamed other people for delay. I have seldom been more outraged".

"I've never been more outraged by the behaviour of any prime minister", she told the talk radio station.

Dr Philip Lee, who resigned from the Government over Theresa May's handling of Brexit blasted the PM for a 'dreadful' speech after watching her address on ITV's Peston

Labour MP, Lisa Nandy, who had been minded to back the PM's deal on leaving the EU, told Robert Peston that her speech was 'disgraceful' and that she had miscalculated badly.

Theresa May told voters that "I am on your side', as she sought to blame MPs for Britain asking the EU for an Article 50 extension.

Speaking behind a lectern in 10 Downing Street, Mrs May said that MPs – who rejected her deal by 230 votes in January and 149 last week – had been "unable to agree on a way to implement the UK's withdrawal".

"You want this stage of the Brexit process to be over and done with. I agree. I am on your side. It is now time for MPs to decide", she claimed.

The broadcast was delayed after a difficult meeting with moderate Brexiteers. Tory sources told the Guardian that the meeting went very badly.

The Guardian reported that David Evennett MP told the prime minister that if she did not resolve the crisis "your time will have come to an end". Nigel Evans, a moderate Leave supporting MP, also signalled he believed she should step down.

Others in the room told her that the Article 50 extension made it difficult for them to support her deal if it came back to the House.

One told the Guardian: "I have never been in a meeting like it, the atmosphere was extraordinary".

Sky News political correspondent, Lewis Goodall, summed up Mrs May's approach, reporting: "The constitutional wreckage of Theresa May's approach to Brexit is all around us."

U.K. PM May Stuck in Brexit Fight Amid Reports of Short Delay
U.K. PM May Stuck in Brexit Fight Amid Reports of Short Delay

"The problem is that her vision was rejected - twice and by the biggest margins in history. Yet the prime minister has simply not responded, politically, intellectually or possibly even personally. She seems to have dug a psychological bunker so profound that the reality of her defeats has been unable to reach its depths," he wrote in an opinion piece for the Sky News website.

Support her deal may be evaporating as the PM's authority has all but collapsed, with critics on both sides viewing her as a central part of the deepening Brexit crisis. With both the Government and Parliament daggers drawn, it's unlikely that a prime minister, who does not control her own cabinet, party or MPs, can continue to last much longer.

The fact that Brexit is debated on the floor of the Commons and not on burning streets, as in France with the Yellow Jacket protests, is demonstration of the elasticity of Britain's constitution to cope with such a crisis. But with a PM seemingly so at odds with MPs, the fear is that she will test Parliament to its constitutional limits.