JOHNSON: BACK ME OR ELSE
MPs told to support deal or admit they want to kill off Brexit
BORIS Johnson has thrown down the gauntlet to MPs, telling them to either back any deal he brings back from Brussels – or admit they are trying to stop Brexit.
At the start of a defining week in politics, the Prime Minister yesterday told his Cabinet in a conference call there was still a ‘long way to go’ to hammer out an agreement.
But in a reference to his breakthrough meeting with Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in Merseyside last week, he added: ‘Where there’s a Wirral, there is a way.’
Negotiators are working around the clock in Brussels to agree the basis of a deal by tomorrow so it can be signed off by EU leaders at a summit starting Thursday.
Mr Johnson is hoping to put the agreement to a vote of MPs this weekend as the Commons sits on a Saturday for the first time since the Falklands War. But he faces the threat of a rebel plot to hijack legislation so that any deal is subject to approval in a second referendum.
Yesterday as he briefed his Cabinet colleagues, Mr Johnson said if MPs who are against No Deal now oppose his new deal they will be ‘exposing their true aim of wanting to stop Brexit altogether’.
During the call, which lasted half an hour, it is understood he gave a very rough outline of the proposed compromises to get a deal.
According to a Cabinet source, ministers were ‘very supportive’ of Mr Johnson’s suggestions.
Jacob Rees- Mogg yesterday issued an appeal to Brexiteers to trust the Prime Minister as negotiations enter a critical stage.
The Leader of the Commons, who was a thorn in the side of Theresa May over Brexit, warned compromise was inevitable if there was to be an agreement.
He hinted he may even have to ‘eat my words’ and support a customs plan close to one put forward by Mrs May, which he once called ‘completely cretinous’.
But Mr Rees- Mogg insisted Leave supporters could have confidence Mr Johnson would not give too much ground to Brussels.
‘I think he is somebody who even the arch Eurosceptics, even a member of the Brexit Party, can trust and have confidence in,’ he told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday.
Supporters of a second referendum yesterday claimed they were close to having enough support to push through an amendment making any deal subject to a ‘confirmatory’ public vote.
The idea of a fresh EU referendum was narrowly rejected by MPs in April by 292 votes to 280.
Jeremy Corbyn yesterday appeared resistant to Labour frontbench pressure to back such a move, telling MPs who want a confirmatory vote: ‘I would caution them on this.’
But he looked increasingly isolated after Labour’s business spokesman Rebecca Long-Bailey, who was a main opponent to a second referendum, said she would now back a public vote on a deal.
She told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: ‘I think the only option we’ve got now is to let the people decide.... I know many colleagues are of a similar opinion to me.’