IDS: Tory rebels are plunging a knife into Theresa

IAIN Duncan Smith has warned Tory Brexit rebels they risk ‘plunging a knife’ into the Prime Minister if they vote to keep Britain in a customs union.

Hardcore Remainers risk destroying Theresa May’s premiership and letting in Jeremy Corbyn by doing a deal ‘with the devil’, he warned.

Mr Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, urged MPs to think ‘very carefully’ about how they vote on customs. MPs could vote within weeks on an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill which would keep Britain in a customs union. Brexiteers argue that staying in would make it impossible for Britain to seize the advantages of Brexit by doing free trade deals with the rest of the world.

He told BBC Sunday Politics: ‘They need to think very carefully about this. She [Mrs May] is for leaving the customs union. It was in the manifesto, and all my colleagues stood on that.

‘So this is a very big issue if they’re deciding to break this.

‘Because they do literally plunge a knife into the heart of government and particularly to the prime minister – because it is very much her fixed view, and that is what we stood on at the last election.’

Asked if a rebellion could result in Mrs May being ejected from No.10, he replied: ‘Everybody risks it because we don’t have a majority. So the risk they take is staring across the floor of the House at them right now. Which is somebody who himself says he’s in favour of leaving, which is Jeremy Corbyn, and he doesn’t want to have any truck with staying in things like the Single Market.

‘So they’re likely to do a deal with as far as they’re concerned even the devil on this one,’ he added.

Mr Duncan Smith has previously warned Tory colleagues not to get drawn ‘into a Labour party tactical game which will actually end up in real damage to the UK’.