Labour MP urges Tory Remainers to ‘stick to their guns’

TORY Remainers should “stick to their guns” ahead of any crucial vote in Parliament on the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal, according to a senior Labour MP from Yorkshire.

Leeds West MP Rachel Reeves, chairwoman of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, warned the choice between Theresa May’s Chequers plan and a no-deal Brexit was a “false choice”.

She said jobs and investment “will flow out of this country” if Britain did not remain in the single market and customs union.

Her comments came as Mrs May potentially faces a knifeedge vote in the Commons on any Brexit deal she finalises with the European Union in the coming weeks.

Speaking to the Press Association, Ms Reeves said: “Well, I hope that those in the Conservative Party like Anna Soubry stick to their guns this time because there have been too many occasions in the past where they’ve rolled over at the last minute.

“I think it was very unfortunate that Dominic Grieve didn’t in the end back his own amendment because it would make it easier to amend the Brexit deal if he had’ve stuck to that, so the procedures for getting a better deal or rejecting the Government’s deal are going to be harder than they would have been if Dominic Grieve had’ve stuck to his guns.

“And that’s the worry I guess really, that up until now the ERG [European Research Group] has never backed down, but those with more Remain sympathies have.

“There’s actually more people with those sympathies, with the more Remain sympathies in Parliament or soft Brexit sympathies, than there are for the hard Brexiteers. It’s just the hard Brexiteers are more ruthless.”

Red lines set out by Mrs May at the beginning following the triggering of Article 50, she said, had “totally hampered the process” and made it “a lot harder to reach a compromise”.

“I think the Prime Minister really wants to get a deal,” Ms Reeves added.