IT’S TIME TO UNITE BRITAIN

With Brexit in the balance, Michael Gove makes impassioned plea for MPs to put country first and vote for Mrs May’s deal

MICHAEL Gove today warns rebel Tory MPs they have less than 48 hours to save Brexit.

make sure Brexit happens. Mr Gove, who helped lead Vote Leave, warns that leaving without a deal would not ‘honour’ the commitment made to voters ahead of the referendum.

Andrea Leadsom, another prominent Eurosceptic, also last night issued a stark warning to rebels, saying: ‘It’s now or never.’ The Commons Leader said if Theresa May’s deal is rejected ‘it’s really clear that the next steps Parliament will take make the Brexit we want a fading reality’. Mrs May is expected to make a dash to Brussels this morning in a last ditch attempt to secure changes to her deal. But sources on the Continent were yesterday playing down hopes of any meaningful concessions, saying talks could be as little as a phone call.

British officials spent the weekend locked in negotiations with their EU counterparts over their demands for alterations to the withdrawal agreement so the country cannot be trapped in the Northern Ireland

In a rallying call on the eve of tomorrow’s momentous vote, the Environment Secretary declares that ‘everyone who believes in democracy’ should get behind the Prime Minister’s deal.

Writing in the Daily Mail, he argues the agreement is the only way to heal the nation’s bitter divisions and

backstop. Whitehall sources said the ‘atmosphere was grim’ with concerns that any changes may not be enough to satisfy rebel Tory MPs and the Democratic Unionist Party.

The Prime Minister has promised that if her deal is rejected for a second time tomorrow, MPs will get the chance to vote on leaving the EU without a deal or delaying Brexit beyond March 29.

Senior Tory figures yesterday warned Mrs May’s position could become untenable if she is forced to seek an extension to the two-year Article 50 process.

Sources said Britain would be expected to pay another £13.5billion per year, more than the current £9billion, because the UK would lose its rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher. Even a delay of three months would add billions to the cost of the divorce payment.

The second so-called meaningful vote on the Brexit deal comes after it was rejected by a majority of 230 MPs in January, in a historic defeat for the Government. In a further development last night, Downing Street did not rule out amending tomorrow’s vote on the deal so it is conditional on securing extra changes from the EU before the end of this month.

Meanwhile, Philip Hammond is understood to be ready to promise billions of pounds of extra cash for the police, schools and tax cuts in his Spring Statement on Wednesday – if the deal is passed.

The Chancellor will release around £20billion currently ring-fenced as a contingency in case of No Deal. Mr Gove is pleading for Tory rebels to take a second look at the withdrawal agreement, arguing they should not ‘make our perfect Brexit the enemy of the common good’.

In his article for the Mail, he says: ‘I hope that everyone who believes in our democracy – in the importance of delivering Brexit, but also in the critical need to unite our country – will come behind the Prime Minister’s deal this week.’

He insisted that while the deal is a ‘compromise’, it ‘provides the best way of delivering an exit that can secure our country’s unity and prosperity’.

Mr Gove warns that many of the arguments made against the deal ‘don’t reflect the reality of what’s been achieved’.

‘It is not the case that this deal makes us a colony or vassal state. How could it when it gives us total control over our borders and ends our current automatic payments to the EU?’ he writes.

While admitting there were ‘aspects’ of the backstop he found ‘uncomfortable’, Mr Gove says the version ‘now agreed is very different from the arrangement the Irish Government and the EU first wanted’. ‘It places more cards in our hands than theirs. If we play them with skill we can get the final deal we want,’ he adds.

‘While it’s uncomfortable for us it’s a mistake to think it’s a bed of roses for the EU… I can’t imagine EU politicians tolerating for very long an arrangement which allows us to keep them out of our waters but sell all the fish we want to them, allows us access to their markets but restricts their citizens coming here, allows us to make our economy more competitive and ends all payments to their institutions. EU countries

would want it to end.’ Mr Gove warns Eurosceptic rebels who believe that voting against the plan tomorrow will lead to a No Deal Brexit are likely to be disappointed.

He says: ‘Some may say that ditching this deal will allow us to leave without any compromises, but we didn’t vote in June 2016 to leave without a deal.

‘That wasn’t the message of the campaign I helped lead.’

He adds: ‘It would undoubtedly cause economic turbulence… We would get through it, of course, we’re a great and resilient country. But jobs would be lost in the short term and none of us can be blithe or blasé about the inevitable damage leaving without a deal would cause.’

Mr Gove’s warning comes after Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told Tory MPs they risk losing Brexit altogether if they fail to back Mrs May’s deal. He said there was ‘wind in the sails’ of the opponents of Brexit and that it would be ‘devastating’ for the Tories if they failed to deliver on their commitment to take Britain out of the EU.

Ten years ago, this country was treated to a carnival of political double- dealing as details emerged of the parliamentary expenses scandal.

So remote had MPs become, locked away in their ivory tower, that they managed to convince themselves it was perfectly acceptable to charge the taxpayer for duck houses and pergolas.

The result was a first-class scandal and a loss of trust in our democracy. A decade on and it appears almost nothing has been learned. With the crucial vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal upon us, MPs are again failing to listen to the mood music.

In June 2016 the British people, by a narrow margin, voted to quit the european Union. This followed a campaign during which Leave promised to replace full membership with a UK-eU trade deal.

The closeness of the result was, arguably, self- explanatory. While wanting to sever ties with Brussels, Britons chose Leave on the (sensible) basis of continuing close economic co- operation with what will remain by far our largest trading partner.

Today however, Parliament is exhibiting the same tin ear that got it into trouble over garden furniture.

The British people do not want their desire for independence from the eU stymied by a second referendum or a norway-style deal that would leave this country shackled to the bloc without voting rights. But neither do they desire a chaotic no Deal.

The electorate backed a settlement based on pragmatism and compromise.

As environment Secretary Michael Gove explains so eloquently on these pages, Mrs May’s deal is exactly that kind of agreement – not perfect but absolutely workable. And we commend it to the country.

It returns control of our borders and money, and ends submission (except in a limited way) to the european Court of Justice. It also decouples the UK from ever-greater european integration, while minimising disruption to trade.

But for the dreaded backstop, meant to ensure a soft border on the island of Ireland, it would be a done deal.

Yet, on this rock the Prime Minister’s agreement may founder. not through public opposition but because of wilful deafness in Brussels and Westminster.

eU negotiator Michel Barnier may have been congratulating himself on the apparent humiliation of his British counterparts as he watched the rugby in Dublin yesterday. But rarely does either party in an acrimonious divorce escape unscathed. The embattled eurozone needs a rupture with a major trading partner like a hole in the head.

Meanwhile, hard Brexiteers promise to sacrifice the May deal on the altar of ideological purity. no matter that voting the deal down will almost certainly result in a delayed and softer Brexit.

Or even a second referendum, ending their Brexit dreams altogether.

The British people did not vote for delay, a ‘Brexit in name only’ or a chaotic exit. nor did they ask to be consulted twice.

They voted to leave the eU in an orderly and amicable manner consistent with national dignity. Tone- deaf MPs appear intent on ignoring these instructions.

The Conservative Party, already tearing itself apart over the issue, can’t help gossiping about a leadership contest, amid claims that Mrs May’s head may be the price for getting her deal through.

(Labour, by the way, is happy to sit back and watch the proposed deal implode while cynically hoping to extract maximum advantage from the wreckage.)

The public sent its message two years ago and is apparently still not being heard, even at the eleventh hour.

But if these self-absorbed politicians carry on playing games with the nation’s future, any trust that is left in our ruling class will simply evaporate.