She warned Remainers that if they blocked Brexit it would be “a subversion of our democracy”.

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May refused to consider delaying Brexit, which is set to happen on March 29, to sort out the parliamentary stalemate, despite pleas from Labour and Conservative MPs for her to do so. She said when she went “knocking on doors” people said they just wanted the government to “get on with the job”.

And she refused to concede defeat in advance – unlike in December, when the government postponed the vote. Instead, she used a public appearance and a speech to parliament to insist hers was the only responsible and democratic course as the country heads for its March 29 Brexit deadline.

“No (the withdrawal deal) is not perfect and yes it is a compromise, but when the history books are written people will look at the decision of this House tomorrow and ask ‘did we deliver on the country’s vote to leave the European Union… or did we let the British people down?’” May said.

She was peppered with hostile questions from all sides of politics in the Commons, and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said May was “blaming everybody but herself” for a shambolic Brexit negotiation that had descended into chaos.

The vote on the withdrawal deal is due late on Tuesday – Wednesday morning Australian time - after May faces parliament again to close the debate, followed by a legislative scrap over several proposed amendments.

Some of the amendments, such as Labour’s, would kill the deal altogether. Others seek to change the deal to such an extent that it would need to be renegotiated with the EU – which the EU says it will not do. Some others are designed to pave the way for another Brexit referendum, dubbed the ‘People’s Vote’.

If the deal is defeated May has until Monday to come back with a ‘Plan B’, which observers of the typically stubborn May predict will be a short delay followed by another vote on the same deal.

However, in the meantime she could face a no confidence motion from the Labour opposition, which wants to exploit the government’s weakness to force a general election and take control of Brexit.

She may also be challenged by a group of MPs who want to change House of Commons rules to take control of legislation away from the government in order to set Brexit on a new course – a move that would change British democracy (and was dubbed a ‘very British coup’ by a senior government source in one Sunday newspaper).

On Monday May visited Stoke-on-Trent, one of the country’s highest Brexit-voting areas, to make a speech arguing for her deal. She revealed new “assurances” in a letter from European Council president Donald Tusk and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

The letter, which May said had “legal force”, committed to a rapid negotiation of a new trade and customs deal after Brexit, and promised that if the withdrawal deal’s controversial ‘backstop’ protecting the status of the Irish border was needed it would only be a temporary measure.

But MPs opposed to May’s deal dismissed the letters as unconvincing.

Nigel Dodds, head of the Northern Irish DUP in Westminster, said in the five weeks since the vote was postponed “nothing has fundamentally changed”.

May faced another political setback on Monday when government whip Gareth Johnson resigned in order to vote against the deal – which he had previously supported as a junior minister.

In a letter to the prime minister he said he had found it impossible to reconcile his duties as a whip with his “personal objections to the agreement”.

He said the backstop left the UK with “no clear unilateral path out of the EU and ensures we will be fettered in our ability to negotiate trade deals with other nations”.

He also noted that almost two-thirds of his constituents voted for Brexit.

But in a sign that the vote may be closer than predicted, Labour MP Tulip Siddiq revealed she had postponed the date of her planned caesarean section by two days so she could vote against May’s deal.

She will be taken into the Commons in a wheelchair by her husband, the Evening Standard reported.