Theresa May issues last-minute Brexit plea to Tory MPs ahead of Brussels visit

Theresa May has appealed to her warring MPs to set aside their "personal differences" on Brexit and unite behind her deal, as she faces another strained week of negotiations with Brussels.

The PM wrote all Conservative MPs urging them to "move beyond what divides us" and warning that "history will judge us".

May's latest plea for unity comes as the boss of Airbus in the UK warned that a no-deal Brexit would be “absolutely catastrophic” for the company.

Katherine Bennett said today there was “no such thing as a managed no-deal” and that leaving the European Union with no agreement would be an “absolute disaster” for Airbus.

Read more: John McDonnell: 'We've held the party together on Brexit'

This week May will head to Brussels with a string of ministers in a last-ditch attempt to win concessions from the EU, after MPs last week rejected by 303 votes to 258 a motion that would have reaffirmed parliamentary support for the government’s approach to the negotiations.

Brexit secretary Steve Barclay will meet the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier – who claimed in the wake of May's most recent Commons defeat that the government's Brexit strategy had failed –  tomorrow while attorney general Geoffrey Cox will address MPs the day after in a speech that will outline the possible legal changes that could be made to the troublesome Irish border backstop protocol to which so many of May's MPs object.

Pro-Brexit Tories are demanding that the backstop be removed from the Withdrawal Agreement, but in a move that will likely inflame tensions on the government benches culture secretary Jeremy Wright yesterday suggested that any reform may well stop short of scrapping the backstop. “I don’t think it’s the mechanism that matters, it’s the objective: If you can get to a place where the potential longevity of the backstop, the potential that the backstop lasts forever, can be adequately dealt with, that’s what we’re all seeking to do,” he told the BBC.

The issue of the backstop, in which the whole of the UK would remain in customs union with the EU if a new trading relationship isn't in place after the transition period ends, has dogged May in the Brexit negotiations from the outset – and is the main reason cited by MPs for not backing her deal.

The week ahead will also see May speak to every EU leader and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, as she desperately seeks changes to the withdrawal agreement with fewer than 40 days until the UK’s scheduled exit.

Despite reports over the weekend that French president Emmanuel Macron was prepared to water-down the backstop in a bid to help May pass her deal, officials in Paris moved to quash such rumours – insisting that Macron's position has not changed.

Read more: London banks may need 'chaperones' for EU clients in no-deal Brexit

Amid the ongoing political turmoil, KPMG’s Brexit head James Stewart warned that businesses were now “testing the airbags” on their preparations for a cliff-edge Brexit.

“Time is a luxury we no longer have, so people are bracing themselves for the immediate potential impacts,” he said.