Cabinet talks could split party and axe PM
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58 votes, left Mrs May facing a spiralling crisis. A customs union proposal tabled by Tory former chancellor Ken Clarke, defeated by six votes last week and just three last night, may still be the most likely compromise option.
Defence Minister Tobias Ellwood had said: “I think that’s where we are heading towards.”
Supporters of a Norway Plus plan, defeated by 94 last week, received a boost after they won the backing of Labour and the SNP but lost by 21.
In a letter to his MPs, Jeremy Corbyn said his decision was taken “to break the deadlock and find the consensus necessary to force a change to the red lines of the PM’s rejected deal”.
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said her party’s MPs were backing the plan “to keep that option alive in case it later becomes the only alternative to a harder Brexit”. Downing Street hopes
ENVIRONMENTAL protesters strip and bare their bums in the Commons as MPs debate ahead of yesterday’s Brexit votes.
Labour’s Ed Miliband, right, looked stunned by their antics in the public gallery. Twelve were held for “outraging public decency”. This allows EU states to trade freely with each other with no checks or duties on goods, and set the same tariffs on imports from outside the bloc. But it would mean we could not negotiate our own trade deals with other countries. It allows close ties to the EU, not as full members but in the single market with a customs “arrangement” giving us a say in future EU trade deals. Norway-plus commits us to free movement of people but with an “emergency brake”. This would require a second referendum to confirm any deal passed by Parliament before it is ratified. Many of its supporters are backing other options to keep them on the table but hope for this to be a condition of any agreement. This would instruct the Government to seek an extension of the Brexit process and if this is not possible, MPs would choose between either no-deal or revoking Article 50. An inquiry into the future relationship would follow. support for a soft Brexit may finally convince Brexiteer rebels the PM’s deal was the only one on offer.
But Mrs May’s hopes of winning over the DUP were looking slim. Its Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson said it would vote “a thousand times” against the plan as the implications for Northern Ireland are
“far too serious”.
A hardcore of Tory eurosceptics appeared to stand firm. Rebel Richard Drax, who backed the deal last week, said he made “the wrong call” and would now oppose it.
Andrew Bridgen added: “I don’t have confidence in Mrs May but she has one chance to save the Tory Party, our democracy and get us out of the EU.”
Tory MPs were given a free vote last night, but Cabinet ministers had been told to abstain.
Sir Oliver Letwin, who last week seized control of the order paper for MPs, suggested ministers could bring
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