London and Brussels are preparing themselves for the most important vote on Brexit since the 2016 referendum on EU membership, as U.K. lawmakers decide whether to accept the Brexit deal struck by Prime Minister Theresa May and the EU.
If lawmakers vote against the deal Tuesday evening, they will then get to vote on Wednesday and Thursday respectively on whether the U.K. should leave the 28-member bloc with no deal or should request a delay to its departure, scheduled for March 29.
The deal has already been roundly rejected by U.K. lawmakers once, in January, with many MPs worried about a part of the withdrawal agreement that aimed to prevent a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland (which is a part of the U.K.) should the EU and U.K. fail to agree a trade deal in a 21-month transition period.
MPs didn't like the fact that the Irish backstop, although intended as a last-resort, would mean the U.K. remaining within a EU customs union for an indefinite amount of time and unable to leave unilaterally.
In a last-ditch attempt to allay those concerns and to persuade skeptical Brexiteers to accept her deal, May traveled to Strasbourg Monday night and said she had won "legally binding" assurances from the EU over the Irish backstop and called on MPs to back her "improved" deal. She said the changes meant now that the backstop couldn't become permanent.
Sterling rallied at the announcement but it's uncertain whether the assurances will be enough to make a majority of MPs approve the deal. The opposition Labour party has already called on Parliament to reject the deal.
The government's chief legal adviser Attorney General Geoffrey Cox is expected to give his legal judgment on the backstop changes later Tuesday morning and this could be crucial to whether the assurances May received on Monday are enough to give wavering MPs the confidence to give May's deal gets the green light.
There are still many MPs to convince, least of all in her own party. Former attorney general and Conservative MP Dominic Grieve told the BBC Tuesday morning that he didn't see how the assurances had made "any significant difference to the backstop.
May needs to win over the most ardent Brexiteers within her own Conservative party who belong to a euroskeptic European Research Group (ERG) and the Northern Irish party that supports her government and gives it a slim majority in parliament, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
Nicky Morgan, a Conservative MP in the Remain camp, told CNBC Tuesday morning that it's not yet possible to tell if May has enough support for the deal from within the party but said she would be supporting the Brexit deal when she votes this evening.
"Yes, I've looked at the documents and yes I will be voting for the agreement. I do think what's been put on the table yesterday (the assurances over the backstop) is a step-forward," she told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick in London, adding that other MPs were "doing the right thing" and scrutinizing the documents before making their minds up about the deal.
"I think (the vote) will be very, very close. I think it is perfectly possible (for the deal to be approved) but much will depend on the legal advice (from Attorney General Geoffrey Cox) and what happens to a number of key MPs and their views."
A prominent member of the ERG and the leader of the DUP said in a joint opinion piece in the Sunday Telegraph that defeat for May was "inevitable" and predicted a "three-figure majority" against the deal but that was before assurances over the backstop. In January, the deal was voted down by a huge margin, with 432 against it and 202 approving it.
On Tuesday morning, the pro-Brexit DUP is expected to give a statement on their position on the Brexit deal ahead of the vote and the party's leader Arlene Foster said the assurances needed "careful analysis" before that decision was made.
DUP MP Sammy Wilson told CNCB Tuesday that the party would listen to Geoffrey Cox's legal advice but that the party was also listening to other lawyers for their advice on the assurances May had received from Brussels.
"I don't think this has even ticked all the boxes for the prime minister. She certainly didn't look like someone who had been triumphant," he told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick. "We will look at the details of the text and we will listen to the attorney general but what we have been looking for in all of this are legally binding changes that make sure that the U.K. government has control over any backstop and that the U.K. government will be in a position in our future relationship to ensure we have control over our laws, trade and money and that the union (the U.K.) will be maintained."
If parliament rejects the deal, rejects a 'no-deal' departure in a vote tomorrow and then votes on Thursday to delay Brexit, the U.K. will have to ask the EU for an extension.
The EU has signaled it's willing to consider a delay but there's little appetite to let Brexit unsettle European Parliament elections in May.
As such, the U.K. could be granted an extension of a few months or even a much longer extension that runs the same length as the 21-month transition period.
There is increasing weariness on the continent, with the European Commission's President Jean-Claude Juncker has already warned "there will be no third chance" and "no further interpretations of the interpretations; no further assurances of the re-assurances — if the meaningful vote tomorrow fails," Juncker said Monday at a midnight press conference with May.
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