In a concession to Remain campaigners that infuriated Tory Brexiteers, the Prime Minister pledged to give the Commons a chance to trigger a national poll in return for supporting her legislation to smooth the UK’s departure from the EU in “one last chance” to deliver Brexit. She also sought to win over Labour MPs by dangling the prospect of keeping the country in a temporary EU customs union until at least the next general election. Admitting her “bold” offer to her opponents was her last chance to break the Brexit deadlock, an impassioned Mrs May admitted: “I have tried everything I possibly can to find a way through.”

And she warned the alternative was months more Brexit delay threatening “a nightmare future of permanently polarised politics”.

But her already slim hopes of finally winning Commons backing in a series of crunch votes next month appeared to be extinguished last night as both Tory Brexiteers and opposition parties flatly rejected her appeal.

Labour branded her proposals a “repackaged version of the same old deal” while Tory backbenchers rubbished them as a “dog’s breakfast” and “truly awful”.

Mrs May set out her offer of a “new Brexit deal” in a speech at the headquarters of professional services giant PwC in central London.

It followed angry clashes during a two-hour row over Brexit at a Cabinet meeting in Downing Street where Brexiteer ministers including Andrea Leadsom, below, and Chris Grayling expressed fury about the shift towards a possible second referendum.

At the end of the meeting, Tory Chief Whip Julian Smith, above, warned the Prime Minister her EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill faces almost certain defeat next month.

By last night, more than 50 Tory MPs had pledged to vote against it.

Tory leadership contenders Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab, who reluctantly backed her deal in a Commons vote in March, were among those vowing opposition.

Mr Johnson said: “We are being asked to vote for a customs union and a second referendum. The Bill is directly against our manifesto. We can and must do better.”

Mr Raab said: “I cannot support legislation that would be the vehicle for a second referendum or customs union. Either would frustrate rather than deliver Brexit.”

In her speech, Mrs admitted delivering Brexit had proved “even harder” than she had anticipated.

But she still insisted the best way forward was to negotiate a good exit deal with the EU as the basis of a “new deep and special partnership for the future”.

She acknowledged her attempts at winning backing from her own party and her allies in the Democratic Unionist Party had failed and led to her promising to quit her job earlier than she would have liked.

She was convinced a majority of MPs wanted to deliver on the result of the 2016 EU referendum to quit the bloc and there was “one last chance” to do that.

She put forward a 10-point plan including a string of concessions to opposition demands including legal guarantees that EU workers’ rights and environmental regulations will not be watered down after the country leaves the EU.

Full details will be set out in a Bill of more than 100 pages expected to be published before the Commons breaks for Whitsun tomorrow.

With deep reluctance, she offered to give MPs another chance to vote on the possibility of a second referendum as part of her EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill.

She said: “I do not believe this is a route that we should take, because I think we should be implementing the result of the first referendum, not asking the British people to vote in a second one.

“But I recognise the genuine and sincere strength of feeling across the House on this important issue.

“The Government will, therefore, include in the Withdrawal Agreement Bill at introduction a requirement to vote on whether to hold a second referendum.

“This must take place before the Withdrawal Agreement can be ratified.”

Senior Tories admitted the deadline for delivering Brexit, currently October 31, could be delayed by months to give time to organise a referendum.

Mrs May warned that rejecting her deal could lead to a no-deal Brexit, an election or a second referendum that could lead to “no Brexit at all”.

She claimed her last-chance offer would break the deadlock that had become “corrosive” to British politics.

She added: “The world is changing fast. Our young people will enjoy opportunities in the future that my generation could never have dreamed of. And we have all we need as a nation to make a success of the 2020s and the 2030s. “But we will not do so as long as our politics remains stuck in an endless debate on Brexit.”

But Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn said: “The Prime Minister’s proposal seems to be largely a rehash of the Government’s position in the cross-party talks that failed to reach a compromise last week.

“On key elements – customs, market alignment and environmental protections – what the Prime Minister calls her new Brexit deal is effectively a repackaging of the same old bad deal, rejected three times by Parliament.”

Former Tory Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith said: “I can’t see that we’ve taken back control over anything. The backstop is still there, it’s a customs union in all but name and it puts Brussels firmly in control of our destiny.

There’s nothing new or bold about this bad buffet of non-Brexit options.”

Former Brexit minister Steve Baker said: “Of course, I will vote against this muddled implementation of a failed deal which only adds yet more uncertainty – a truly awful situation.”

Tory MP Charlie Elphicke called Mrs May’s plan “even more of a dog’s breakfast than the last deal”, adding: “It is not Brexit and I won’t be supporting it.”

Dr Adam Marshall of the British Chambers of Commerce warned that business would remain “in limbo” in the absence of Parliamentary agreement.

And Confederation of British Industry president John Allan pleaded: “Resolve this gridlock. Do whatever it takes and do it fast.”

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Theresa May’s 10 point plan to clinch Brexit

1. Conclude alternative arrangements to replace the Northern Ireland backstop so that it never needs to be used.

2. Should the backstop come in, Great Britain’s border rules stay aligned with Northern Ireland’s. 

3. Negotiating objectives and final treaties must be approved by MPs. 

4. A Workers’ Rights Bill with rights at least as good as now. 

5. Environment rules unchanged.

6. As close to frictionless trade with the EU as is possible but an end to free movement of people. 

7. Align with EU rules to protect jobs in just-in-time supply chains. 

8. Allow MPs to decide on future customs arrangements. 

9. MPs to vote on whether the deal should be subject to a referendum. 

10. A legal duty to secure changes to the current political declaration.

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Conservatives and Labour are ‘terrified’ of me, says Nige Farage

Jubilant Nigel Farage last night insisted voters who back his party in European elections will stick with it in the future as he was predicted to scoop up four in 10 votes, writes Sam Lister.

The Brexit Party leader returned to London to appear at a sellout rally after being “milkshaked” on Monday.

The Labour and Tory parties are “terrified” of his new group’s success as it storms ahead in the polls just months after being set up, Mr Farage claimed.

Difficult Speaking before a rapturous crowd at Kensington Olympia Mr Farage said he made the “biggest political mistake” of his life when he believed Britain would be out of the EU by March 29.

Theresa May had “humiliated the nation” with her “abject surrender” to EU “bully boys”.

The Brexit Party leader added: “Just when you think she can’t sink any lower, she comes back and surprises us.

“Now she has surrendered to virtually everything.”

Mr Farage also urged unhappy Tories to vote for his Brexit Party. He told cheering supporters that a big win tomorrow would “kill off” a second referendum.

Mr Farage said he was not asking voters to back his party to “stick two fingers up” at the establishment.

He added: “I’m asking for you to vote for us on Thursday as the first step to fundamentally changing politics for good in this country.

“We are attempting to start a peaceful political revolution in this country.”

Earlier, speaking on LBC, he said: “[Other parties] are absolutely terrified, because what they are seeing is …

people are saying, not just they will vote for the Brexit Party on Thursday in the European election, but a huge percentage of them saying they will do so in a general election.And that’s what’s got them scared.”

Bookmakers put the Brexit Party odds-on at 1/50 to win most seats in Thursday’s vote and predicted it would win up to 40 per cent of the vote.

Analysis by Macer Hall

Theresa May’s fourth and final attempt to win parliamentary approval for her Brexit plans looks doomed even before the final draft of the legislation has been sent to the printers.

The resounding raspberry for her “new Brexit deal” from across the Commons last night suggests the Prime Minister’s hope of knitting together a coalition of convenience is little more than a dream.

Mrs May seems to be determined to use her final weeks in Downing Street to fight to the last for her Brussels deal in the face of insurmountable parliamentary opposition.

The concessions to Labour demands particularly the inducement of a possible national poll on her deal that could scupper Brexit altogether, mean more Eurosceptic Tories will vote against her EU Withdrawal Bill next month than the 34 who sided against her in the last Commons “meaningful vote” on March 29.

With their focus now on the coming Tory leadership battle, the Brexiteers have little incentive to support the outgoing Prime Minister.

Only tomorrow’s Euro elections have the chance to change the dynamic at Westminster.

Both Labour and the Tories are braced for a hammering at the hands of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party.

Westminster could even be shocked into reappraising the chance of an escape route from the increasingly “corrosive” political divisions that the Prime Minister warned about yesterday.

It is the slimmest of hopes.

Yet Mrs May has little else to grasp on to.

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