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After 118 vote against deal, he tells them: You’ve blown chance of a proper Brexit

HARDLINE Brexiteers were accused last night of ushering in a softer Brexit – or jeopardising Britain’s exit from the EU completely.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove attacked the European Research Group led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, whose members voted against Theresa May’s deal.

Mr Gove said: ‘The truth is the ERG have voted themselves for a softer Brexit. There is now a risk of no Brexit happening and there is a greater chance of a much softer Brexit.

‘This was the best chance for a proper Brexit, and the ERG have voted against it.’

He spoke after almost 120 Tories voted against their leader last night and declared her Brexit deal dead in the water.

The ‘No’ lobby in the House of Commons was heaving as 17 Conservative former Cabinet ministers lined up to emphatically reject Mrs May’s agreement with Brussels.

High-profile figures among the final total of 118 Tory rebels included the formerly loyal ex-defence secretary Michael Fallon and Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary.

Former Brexit secretaries David Davis and Dominic Raab also voted against, along with ex-work and pensions secretaries Iain Duncan Smith and Esther McVey, and former aid secretaries Andrew Mitchell and Priti Patel. At the same time, senior Remainers defied the PM, including ex-education secretary Justine Greening and Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general.

They all voted against the deal just minutes after Mrs May pleaded passionately with them in the Commons chamber to support the agreement in the national interest.

To add to her humiliation, even Sir Graham Brady, the Conservatives’ shop steward, was pictured queuing up to vote against the Prime Minister.

On an extraordinary night of Westminster drama, MPs even defied Parliamentary rules to take photographs of the huge crowd queuing in the ‘No’ lobby to destroy the deal.

Meanwhile, two ministerial aides, Tom Pursglove and Eddie Hughes, resigned from the Government to vote ‘No’.

While 118 Tories voted against Mrs May’s deal, 196 voted in favour. But most were members of the Government who would have to resign had they not supported her. It meant that of the so-called ‘off-payroll’ vote, the vast majority defied Mrs May.

Three of the 13 Scottish Tory MPs voted against Mrs May’s deal: pro-Brexit MP Ross Thomson, Ruth Davidson ally John Lamont and Moray MP Douglas Ross. Mr Thomson, who represents Aberdeen South, said he voted against because it was the ‘biggest threat to the Union’ since the Scottish independence referendum.

However, he confirmed he will back the Government in today’s vote of no confidence.

The number of Tories rejecting the Prime Minister’s deal was one more than the 117 who voted against her in last month’s no-confidence motion in her leadership.

Last night, Mr Johnson, who quit as foreign secretary last July, told Sky News: ‘The margin of defeat for the Government is bigger than I expected. What she has now is a massive mandate. With 432 votes against her deal, she takes it back to Brussels and says, “We can’t do this deal as it is. We need a fresh approach”.

‘What she should not do, and I’m hearing rumours around this place, what would be fatal is parliamentary plottery and jiggery-pokery and coming up with schemes to delay Article 50 or come up with a second referendum.’

Asked if Mrs May should stay on, Mr Johnson said: ‘We in the Conservative Party went through that in December last year. That’s not the issue. I would certainly vote for her and the Conservative Govern-

‘We have reached the journey’s end’

ment tomorrow because the one thing I do not want is Jeremy Corbyn taking over as prime minister.’

Miss Greening said: ‘It’s right at the top end of how bad it could be for this deal. This deal is absolutely dead.’

One senior Tory Brexiteer even called on Mrs May to resign, although most insisted they would back her in today’s confidence vote. Sir Bill Cash, speaking before last night’s vote, said Mrs May should follow the example of Neville Chamberlain, who resigned in 1940 after it became clear he had lost the support of Parliament.

He said he believed the Withdrawal Agreement ‘will be consigned to the grave of history’, adding Mrs May’s deal was ‘not compromise as the Attorney General suggested, it is capitulation’.

He said: ‘We are defending our democracy against servitude. I would strongly urge the Government, therefore, after this vote is cast tonight to conclude that enough is enough and that we have reached the journey’s end.

‘Now is the time to walk away from the intransigence of the EU and our failed policy of seeking to supplicate their guidelines, their terms and their paymasters. We witnessed similar events in May 1940 when the then prime minister actually won the vote on the Norway debate but on reflection concluded that he had to resign because he had lost the confidence of Parliament as a whole. There are lessons in this for the PM to consider her position and to do so with dignity and without rancour.’