Theresa May warns UK is headed for 'unchartered territory' if MPs defeat her Brexit deal
- Theresa May warns that Brexit may not happen if MPs vote down her deal.
- The prime minister tells the Andrew Marr show that Britain is heading for "unchartered territory."
- MPs from all parties have vowed to vote down the deal when it returns to parliament in a week's time.
- However, May denies reports that she is planning to delay the vote for a second time.
LONDON - Britain is heading for "unchartered territory," with Brexit potentially being cancelled if MPs vote down Theresa May's Brexit deal later this month, the prime minister said today.
May warned Conservative MPs who are planning to vote down her deal that they risked triggering "no Brexit" at all.
"Don't let the search for the perfect [Brexit] become the enemy of good," May told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.
"We would be in uncharted territory... no one knows what will happen"
The prime minister denied reports on Sunday that she is preparing to delay the vote on the deal she has secured from the EU for a second time, suggesting that it will happen on the week of the 14th.
"We will be holding the vote," May insisted.
She also refused denied that she plans to seek an extension of the two-year Article 50 process, suggesting that calls for an extension were really an attempt to prevent Brexit happening at all.
The prime minister was forced to abandon plans to hold a vote on the deal in December after more than a hundred Conservative MPs and the Democratic Unionist Party, which props up May's minority government, vowed to vote against it.
She was subsequently hit by a failed leadership challenge in which more than a third of Conservative MPs registered their lack of confidence in her leadership.
The prime minister survived the challenge by promising to stand down before the next election.
She repeated the pledge this morning, telling Marr that "I'm not going to be calling a snap election and I'm not going to lead [the Conservatives] into the general election."
Downing Street had hoped that MPs would return to their constituencies at Christmas and be told by party members to get behind the prime minister.
However, polling released on Friday suggest that Tory members are even more opposed to May's deal than their MPs, with a majority calling on parliament to vote it down later this month.
Reports this weekend suggest that Downing Street are planning to put the deal before parliament up to 30 times in an attempt to bludgeon MPs into backing it in order to prevent a no-deal Brexit.