Andrea Leadsom wants to push through parts of Theresa May’s Brexit deal through parliament

The D-Day commemorations complete, Theresa May will today relinquish the role as Conservative party leader.

On Monday the race to replace her begins in earnest, as the starting gun is fired on the party’s official election process and the hustings get underway.

And Andrea Leadsom, the woman who made way for Mrs May in 2016, is planning another run for the job, despite being someway down the running order.

Once the poster girl for the Brexiteer wing of the party, her decision to remain in cabinet as leader of the House throughout the whole Brexit business has dented her sheen.

Dominic Raab and Boris Johnson have replaced her as the true Brexiteer candidates, but Mrs Leadsom is undaunted and is preparing to throw her hat in the ring.

The former leader of the Commons, who quit cabinet on the eve of the publication of Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement Bill (in the end it never saw the light of day), is undoubtedly an underdog.

There have been questions whether Mrs Leadsom, who was only three years ago in the final two of the contest to become prime minister, can even drum up the support (eight backers) to enter the race. She tells me she’s got the backers and she hopes she has a plan on Brexit that might just bring other Brexiteers on board.

Like other key Brexiteers – Mr Johnson and Mr Raab – Mrs Leadsom is clear about one thing: Brexit must be delivered on 31 October. The time for trying to renegotiate Mrs May’s deal – rivals Mr Raab, Matt Hancock and Sajid Javid are all pushing variations of this idea – is over.

“Essentially, I believe the Withdrawal Agreement Bill is dead,” says Mrs Leadsom as we sit on her white leather couch over cups of peppermint tea in her Westminster flat. “The EU won’t change it and parliament won’t vote for it and we have to leave the EU at the end of October.”

Instead Mrs Leadsom has a different plan: she wants to push through key parts of Mrs May’s toxic Brexit deal through parliament in order to soften the impact of leaving without a deal on October 31.

Mrs Leadsom describes the plan as a “managed exit”. The aim is to put measures in place to avoid a “so-called crashing out” on 31 October. It is effectively a pick-and-mix of Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement and it requires an gigantic dose of goodwill from both parliament and the European Union to make her plan work.

The Leadsom plan is three-fold. First, introduce essential legislation on areas provisionally agreed in the Withdrawal Agreement between the UK and the EU to smooth the Brexit process.

Mrs Leadsom wants to introduce a citizens’ rights bill to protect EU citizens in the UK – and an EU Departure Provisions Bill to include “sensible measures” covering areas such as sovereign bases, security measures, cross-border flights and medicine.

Second, ramp up preparations for leaving the EU at the end of October, including work on a “virtual border” for Northern Ireland and special arrangements for “just in time” supply chains.

The third measure would be to lead a delegation to speak to EU27 leaders to discuss the measures the UK is offering EU to support a managed exit. Mrs Leadsom is proposing a summit in September to agree a programme.

But Mrs Leadsom herself admitted in our interview that “nothing is guaranteed” in all of this. Her plan requires the EU to want to play ball and agree, in effect, a series of “mini-deals” around specific arrangements to avoid a “chaotic” no-deal.

That is a big ask and a big unknown: the European Commission has spent two years hammering out a Withdrawal Agreement bill and now a potential future prime minister is essentially requesting to cherry pick parts of it to ensure Britain can quit and not face huge disruption.

“Of course nothing is guaranteed. All of these are political calculations but essentially if you agree with the EU that we are leaving at the end of October and that will be in their interests and our interests you then turn around that debate so that we and the EU can have a shared interest in making sure that the transition is smooth.”

And as for parliament, I put it to Mrs Leadsom that MPs will amend any piece of legislation she lays before parliament to try to block her plan to leave on 31 October without a deal.

Mrs Leadsom doesn’t agree. “I don’t see it in the same light. Most of my colleagues are on the side of the House and certainly the DUP are very keen to leave the EU. And you’re right they don’t want to do it with a no-deal Brexit but I am talking about a managed exit and by definition that is not no-deal.”

And this is the nub of all of this. Each leadership candidate is trying to sell a Brexit plan that rests on a wing and a prayer.

Mrs Leadsom wants a managed exit, but whether she can get it depends on a benevolent EU and UK parliament. Other Brexiteers are promising to try a renegotiation with a view to quitting come what may on 31 October (Mr Raab and Mr Johnson) and then there’s a group of candidates – including Mr Hancock and Michael Gove – who want to leave with a deal and will focus on negotiations rather than a hard out.

Some depend on parliament shifting, others depend on the EU. Not one candidate can confidently say they can get any plan – or a no-deal – through the Commons.

Perhaps that’s why Mr Raab refused to rule out proroguing parliament this autumn in order to prevent blocking a no-deal Brexit.

Suspending a parliamentary session and shutting down the Commons to push through a no-deal is truly unprecedented.

King Charles I did it in the 17th century to get his way – and it ultimately cost him his head. Now it seems some in the Tory party are losing theirs.

Because the situation is dreadful. The numbers in the Commons are still the same. There is no alternative plan to Mrs May’s. So far the candidates who would replace her are either trying to plunder the best bits of her agreement with the EU or slightly adjust the terms (Ireland’s backstop the focus) in order to get a deal done.

Whether they are successful is the big unknown. Parliament is determined to avoid a no-deal Brexit while a wing of leadership contenders are adamant that Brexit must be delivered on Halloween.

Mrs May was effectively asked by her party to stand down because this was a timetable she would not sign up to. A prime minister who tried to get her deal through three times and delay Brexit twice was not a woman ready to pursue no-deal.

Whoever follows her will certainly be more pro-Brexit. They might well commit to getting the UK out by 31 October.

Whether they can or can’t remains to be seen. Mrs May today resigns, but her departure doesn’t really resolve any of these difficulties, not just for the Tories but for the country too.

(c) Sky News 2019: Andrea Leadsom wants to push through parts of Theresa May’s Brexit deal through parliament