Tory chief whip accused of going soft on rebel MPs over customs union

THE Tory chief whip was under fire from Eurosceptic MPs last night after warning Theresa May that she cannot win a Commons vote to leave the customs union.

Julian Smith is said to have issued a bleak warning to the Prime Minister that enough diehard Tory Remainers will vote with Labour on the issue to defeat the Government.

The claim was repeated to the Brexit ‘war cabinet’ on Wednesday, in a failed attempt to persuade them to sign up to a ‘customs partnership’.

Eurosceptic Tories last night accused the whips of ‘going soft’ – and urged them to get tough with rebel MPs.

Former Brexit minister David Jones said: ‘I don’t accept we can’t win it … the whips don’t seem to be pushing it at all – there is an unbelievably light touch.’ Defeat over a Trade Bill amendment, tabled by Tory exministers Anna Soubry and Kenneth Clarke, would require the Government to pursue a customs union with the EU after Brexit.

A vote has been delayed to give the whips more time. But they are said to have been given ‘short shrift’. Former party leader Iain Duncan Smith said it needed to be made clear to Tory MPs backing the amendment that it would be a ‘very serious’ business. But a Government source said it was ‘counterproductive’ to browbeat the rebels.

Brexit Secretary David Davis yesterday told MPs he was ‘100 per cent’ confident the UK would leave the customs union next year.