Cabinet coup or not, the government is on the brink of collapse over Brexit

The correct reports in Sunday Times and Mail on Sunday this morning that some ministers (not all) want Theresa May to go now, and make way for a caretaker – either David Lidington or Michael Gove – tells me NOT she will definitely go within a few days (though she may) but that the government is perilously close to collapse.

Because what it shows is the underlying split in the cabinet between those ministers – Gauke, Clark, Rudd, Mundell – who want to stop a no-deal Brexit at any cost, and those who want to prevent either a referendum or a “soft” Brexit “in name only” – Leadsom, Mordaunt, Fox, Grayling – has become irreconcilable.

For a brief moment at the end of last week ministers on the more Remain side in particular thought replacing May would paper over this yawning gap on the most important decision this country has faced since we joined the EU in 1973 – but it can’t and won’t.