Draft deal on Brexit agreed, No 10 confirms.

BREXIT: Cabinet to meet after draft deal is reached with EU in talks breakthrough

Theresa May faced a Brexiteer backlash as her Cabinet began consideration of a deal with Brussels.

Number 10 confirmed a draft deal had been reached by officials negotiating in Brussels after months of talks.

Ministers have been invited to Downing Street to read documents relating to the agreement before a special Cabinet meeting today.

Last night Chancellor Philip Hammond was among those who arrived at Downing Street for a meeting with Mrs May around 8.30pm.

Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson urged his ex-Cabinet colleagues to “chuck it out”, warning the proposals made a “nonsense of Brexit”.

And Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the influential European Research Group of dozens of Tory MPs, said: “It is a failure of the government’s negotiating position, it is a failure to deliver on Brexit and it is potentially dividing up the United Kingdom.”

A series of ministers were seen entering and leaving Downing Street after the Number 10 announcement.

Chief Whip Julian Smith told reporters: “I am confident that we will get this through Parliament and that we can deliver on what the Prime Minister committed to on delivering Brexit.”

Scottish Secretary David Mundell said ministers would have to “reflect on the detail”.

“That’s what the government has been working for all this time, to get a deal, and negotiators have worked incredibly hard to get us to this point but we have to reflect on the detail and consider at Cabinet tomorrow,” he said.

The special meeting could potentially be a flashpoint for tensions between Brexiteers and Remainers around the Cabinet table, with speculation that Leave-supporting ministers including Penny Mordaunt, Esther McVey and Liam Fox could be prepared to walk out if a deal ties the UK too closely to the EU.

The deal follows intense negotiation in Brussels, with measures to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland the main stumbling block.

Irish broadcaster RTE reported that a “stable” text had been agreed on the thorny issue of the Northern Irish border.

The broadcaster said the deal involved one overall “backstop” in the form of a UK-wide customs arrangement – as sought by Mrs May – but with deeper provisions for Northern Ireland on customs and regulations.

A review mechanism is understood to be part of the text but it is unclear whether that would meet the demands of Tory Brexiteers – including some in the Cabinet – who want the UK to be able to unilaterally walk away from the deal to prevent it becoming a permanent settlement.

A Number 10 spokesman said: “Cabinet will meet at 2pm tomorrow to consider the draft agreement the negotiating teams have reached in Brussels and to decide on next steps.

“Cabinet ministers have been invited to read documentation ahead of that meeting.”

Brexiteers lined up to condemn the deal before its details had even been officially confirmed.

Mr Johnson told the BBC: “For the first time in a thousand years, this place, this Parliament, will not have a say over the laws that govern this country. It is a quite incredible state of affairs.”

Mr Rees-Mogg told the broadcaster: “White flags have gone up all over Whitehall. It is a betrayal of the Union.”

Ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith suggested Mrs May’s administration could collapse over the deal.

Asked if the government’s days were numbered, he said: “If this is the case almost certainly, yes.”

Nigel Dodds, deputy leader of the DUP which props up Mrs May’s minority administration, said that the deal as reported would leave Northern Ireland “subject to the rules and laws set in Brussels with no democratic input or any say”.

Meanwhile, at a People’s Vote rally in Westminster attended by thousands of people, Jo Johnson, who quit as a transport minister over Brexit policy, said: “I talk to many MPs, colleagues in the Cabinet and elsewhere and I’m not going to do them the disservice of naming them, but I know how much they all think deeply about these issues and they are all looking deep into their consciences and thinking whether they can support this deal.”

Philip Hammond arrives at No 10.