Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Former Conservative leader Lord Howard has appealed to the DUP to back Mrs May’s deal, saying it should not be concerned about the backstop because technological advances meant no infrastructure was needed at the Irish border.

“I think there have been some recent developments that ought to reassure people,” he told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme.

“I can’t believe that the EU are so far behind us technologically that they think we have to have infrastructure when we don’t.

“There is no need for infrastructure at the border and therefore there is no need for the backstop.”

He also said Mrs May “deserves a great deal of respect”, since “she’s put the country before her own personal interests”.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Sir Oliver Letwin says a no-deal Brexit on 12 April is looking the most likely outcome unless MPs rally behind one of the alternatives to Theresa May's deal.

Sir Oliver Letwin was the architect of the plan for a series of indicative Commons votes on Brexit - none of which commanded a majority on Wednesday when they were voted on.

MPs are due to hold a second round of votes on Monday - unless Mrs May can get her deal through first.

Sir Oliver told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "At some point or other we either have to get her deal across the line or accept that we have to find some alternative if we want to avoid no deal on the 12th, which I think at the moment is the most likely thing to happen.

"At the moment we are heading for a situation where, under the law, we leave without a deal on the 12th, which many of us think is not a good solution."

Laura Kuenssberg
BBC political editor

The prime minister offered to pay the ultimate price and leave office - the grandest of gestures any leader ever really has.

For a moment it seemed it might work. But within a couple of hours her allies in Northern Ireland were refusing to unblock the progress of Theresa May's main mission.

That might not be terminal - one cabinet minister told me the PM may yet have another go at pushing her deal through Parliament against the odds on Friday.

But if Plan A fails, Parliament is not ready with a clear Plan B that could yet succeed.

For our politics, for businesses trying to make decisions, for all of us, divisions and tensions between and inside our government - and our Parliament - are too profound to bring this limbo to an end.

Read Laura's blog here

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

The DUP might not be the only party to have issues with the Backstop, a senior Labour MP has suggested.

Shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey told BBC Radio 4 that her party has a "problem" with the policy as it "leaves Northern Ireland differently situation from the rest of the UK”.

She added: "I think there are question marks over the backstop because we know that will not be able to function in perpetuity and it puts the UK in a different economic position to Northern Ireland."

Jayne McCormack
BBC News NI

Image source, Getty Images

With one day left before Brexit was originally due to happen, there's still no sign of the government getting its withdrawal deal through Westminster.

The success of Theresa May's deal rests mostly on one thing: persuading her allies in the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to vote for it.

But that is proving the prime minister's toughest task to date.

Despite her offer to step down if MPs back the deal, the DUP insists it will not vote for it.

But what has the party asked for?

Read Jayne's full report here.

Theresa May's decision to stand down after delivering Brexit is widely welcomed.

The Sun, which had called for her to go earlier this week, says she has always done her duty , externalby her country and - "to her great credit" - did so again last night.

The Daily Telegraph leader writers - who have also urged the prime minister to quit in recent days - say that while they have issues with the deal she reached with the EU, they have never doubted her commitment both to the task and to the country.

For the Daily Express, she put the good of the country before personal ambition.

Dominic Sandbrook, writing in the Daily Mail, external, says that even though Mrs May's premiership seems likely to end before its third anniversary, perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is that it lasted so long.

In the words of the Times, she bowed to the inevitable, external.

"She was dealt a near-impossible hand with Brexit and played it astonishingly poorly," it argues.

In the Daily Mirror's view, external, she will be "remembered as a leader whose mishandling of the Brexit process inflamed divisions while leaving the country facing an uncertain future".

At every stage of Brexit, she made the wrong choices, it says.

The Financial Times says, external: "Mrs May has struggled to reconcile her own Brexit red lines with political reality, attempting to pull off an almost impossible feat with a non-existent majority, a disintegrating cabinet and a mutinous party."

Her decision to announce her resignation was her final desperate attempt to ensure that Brexit will indeed be her legacy, not a piece of unfinished business to be handed over to her successor, it adds.

For the Guardian, Mrs May might get , externalof sorts" but nothing about her deal would serve the wider interests of the country.

It says the agreement is unchanged, the prospect of a different Tory leader won't fix its deficiencies and its opponents will not really have changed their minds.

Read the full paper review.

Welcome to our coverage of another Brexit-dominated day in Westminster.

Today, the government is making frantic efforts to save Theresa May's Brexit deal - after the prime minister told backbench Conservatives that she'd resign if they helped pass it.

The Democratic Unionists have said they still can't vote for the agreement.

Attempts to overcome the impasse in the Commons failed after MPs rejected eight alternatives to Mrs May's deal last night.

Image source, Getty Images

It's been another rollercoaster day in UK politics.

Here’s a summary of what happened today:

• Theresa May went head-to-head with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in Prime Minister’s Questions. You can read about the key bits and the verdict here.
• Commons Speaker John Bercow – who earlier this month said the government was not allowed to hold a third vote on its Brexit deal, unless it had made “substantial” changes – repeated his warning today. His comments infuriated some ministers. But a Downing Street spokesman said the date of the UK’s exit had changed, and also "extra reassurances" over the Irish backstop were new.
• At just after 17:00 GMT, Prime Minister Theresa May met members of the 1922 Committee – made up of Conservative backbenchers. As MPs started to leave the meeting, the news emerged that Mrs May had promised them that she would quit if they backed her Brexit deal.
• Mrs May's announcement prompted some “very hardline Brexiteers” to tell the prime minister that they will now vote for her deal, according to MP George Freeman who was in the meeting. There were also reports that Boris Johnson – who has been fiercely critical of Mrs May’s Brexit deal – was planning to switch and support the deal.
• But the DUP – the party which Mrs May’s government relies on for a majority in Parliament – said it would still not be supporting the Brexit deal because of the Irish backstop plan.
• Then, in the evening, Parliament held a series of indicative votes on alternative Brexit options. There were eight votes – ranging from a proposal to revoke Article 50 in the case of a no-deal Brexit, to a “Norway plus” plan. But none of the eight options won outright support. Read more about what just happened here.

Use our look-up to see how your MP voted on each of the eight options put to them tonight