More than half of grassroots Tory members prefer a no-deal Brexit to the agreement Theresa May has struck with Brussels, a new poll has found.
Most Conservative members (57%) think crashing out of Europe without a deal is better than their own leader’s Brexit plan, according to the survey funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
In a three-way referendum between May’s deal, no deal and remain, just 23% would back the prime minister.
Research leader Professor Tim Bale said: “If Theresa May is hoping that her MPs will return to Westminster having been persuaded by their constituency associations to back her Brexit deal, she’s going to be disappointed.
“It appears that those members are in no mood for compromise.
“Moreover, the Tory rank and file, it seems, are convinced that no deal is better than May’s deal.”
He added: “Tory members’ dislike for the PM’s deal really comes out when we asked about a referendum in which the choice came down to her deal or no deal.
“Only 29% of Tory members would vote for Mrs May’s deal, compared to 64% who would vote to leave without a deal.
“But that’s as nothing to Conservative Party members faced with a referendum offering just two choices – remain or no deal. Some 76% of Conservative Party members would plump for no deal.”
The Northern Irish backstop and over-hyped “project fear” warnings about the risks of a no-deal Brexit were said to be driving the support for crashing out.
Some 40% think the customs backstop is reason enough to reject May’s deal, while 21% views it as irrelevant because the deal “is a bad one anyway”.
More than three quarters (76%) of members see warnings that a no-deal Brexit would cause serious disruption as “exaggerated or invented”.
“Tory members – like Tory voters – are utterly unconvinced, despite their own government’s best recent efforts – that a no-deal Brexit would cause serious disruption,” said Prof Bale.
“Some 72% of voters currently intending to support the Conservatives think the warnings are ‘exaggerated or invented’ – a figure that rises to 76% among Tory members.
“Meanwhile, those members are convinced by a margin of 64% to 19% that leaving without a deal would have a positive rather than a negative effect on Britain’s economy in the medium to long term.”
It comes as May faces perhaps the most testing period of her premiership, with the Article 50 deadline looming on March 29 and MPs looking likely to vote down her deal in Westminster later this month.
Despite May surviving a vote of no-confidence in her leadership in December, nearly half (48%) of Tory members thinks she is doing fairly badly or very badly as PM and 44% think she should quit if parliament votes to reject her deal.
“In short, Mrs May has failed not only to convince the country, and quite probably Parliament, that her Brexit deal is a good one, she has also failed to convince the party faithful,” Prof Bale said.
“If anything, grassroots Tories are even less impressed than Tory MPs.
“If some of those MPs can be persuaded to back the prime minister’s deal, it won’t be because they’ve come under pressure to do so from their local party members over the Christmas break.”