Boris urges May to make final appeal on backstop

Johnson calls on PM to delay third Brexit vote and seek ‘real change’ from Brussels

BORIS JOHNSON today urges Eurosceptic MPS to reject Theresa May’s Brexit deal for a third time if it is put to the vote this week, warning that it gives the European Union “an indefinite means of blackmail” against the UK.

In a major blow to the Prime Minister’s hopes of getting her deal through Parliament before Thursday’s EU summit, the former foreign secretary paints the Government as collaborators in “the final sabotage of Brexit” just 11 days before Britain is due to leave the EU.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson urges Mrs May to postpone the vote and use the EU summit to seek “real change” to the Northern Irish backstop. He says it would be “absurd” to put the deal to a third vote without seeking a compromise one more time.

Two senior Cabinet ministers confirmed yesterday that Mrs May would only go ahead with the third “meaningful vote” on her deal, due to be held by Wednesday, if she believes she will win.

There were signs last night that Mrs May could be close to winning over the DUP, whose votes are seen as vital in her chances of turning the result around.

Senior ministers including Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, have been in talks over the weekend with the DUP leadership. They continue today.

Sources said the DUP could sign up to the deal if given a Northern Irish veto on decisions over the backstop, a seat at the table when trade talks begin and a guarantee there will be no customs border in the Irish Sea. And in a boost for the Prime Minister, Lord Trimble, the Ulster Unionist former first minister of Northern Ireland, has said in a paper for the Policy Exchange think tank that the Government has “succeeded in securing substantive changes that will limit the impact of the Irish backstop”.

More than 20 Conservative and Labour MPS are thought to be ready to switch from the no lobby to the aye lobby in a third vote after coming under pressure from their constituencies, but Mrs May needs at least 75 MPS to switch to her if she is to win the vote.

But she faces more bad news as 20 Tory Brexiteers state in a letter to The

Telegraph that they will never back her deal because, “if Britain leaves the European Union as planned on March 29, no deal will prove to be the precursor to a very good deal indeed”.

Eurosceptics believe a further 10 to 20 Tory MPS will reject Mrs May’s deal in a third vote, leaving her needing Labour MPS in Leave-voting constituencies to change their minds on the deal.

Mr Hammond admitted yesterday that the Government did “not yet” have the numbers to win a vote and announced the vote would not go ahead if it was clear another defeat was likely.

One possibility is that Mrs May could postpone this week’s vote until next week, meaning MPS would already know what kind of Brexit delay the country would face if they rejected the deal a third time.

Mrs May will ask for an extension to Article 50 at the EU summit on Thursday and if MPS have not agreed to her deal by then, the EU is likely to demand a lengthy delay, with strings attached.

Some Downing Street aides believe that seeing the threat of a long delay in black and white might be enough to change Brexiteers’ minds if the vote happened next week. MPS will also

come under pressure from business leaders who have warned that the uncertainty of further delays is the last thing the economy needs.

Ian Mccafferty, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, said yesterday that delaying Brexit would consign Britain’s already weak economy to “sluggish” growth and risked a further manufacturing exodus until a deal was struck.

Large firms, he said, would increasingly be forced into contingency plans that may mean shifting production and operations out of the UK.

“The longer the uncertainty continues, the more it is clear that businesses are finding it difficult simply to wait,” he said.

Calls from MPS for Mrs May to quit as the price for backing her deal were also growing over the weekend, as several Conservatives made clear to the Prime Minister and her advisers in oneto-one phone calls.

One source said: “If you are close to backing the deal, now is the time to use your leverage and tell Mrs May she has to announce the date of her departure if she wants your vote.”

Mr Johnson argues that it would be “absurd” for Mrs May to hold the vote before she has made one last attempt to get “real change to the backstop” at the summit.

Reporting that he has the full backing of his local constituency association to vote down the deal for a third time, he says that if the deal went through it would leave the UK “in a position of almost unbearable weakness” in its negotiations over a future trade deal with the EU.

In allowing MPS to vote to block a no-deal Brexit last week, the Government has shown it is “willing to torch its own negotiating capital”, he argues, and until it can provide “better answers” on how it intends to safeguard Britain’s independent future, the deal must be opposed.