Brexit vote latest: Theresa May faces biggest defeat in modern history as Cabinet splits down the middle

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Theresa May’s Cabinet split down the middle today as her Brexit deal careered towards a landmark defeat in the Commons.

Senior ministers clashed at the weekly gathering where Conservative party chairman Brandon Lewis warned that a government deal with Labour would not be tolerated.

The Prime Minister told the meeting at No 10 that “the Government is the servant of the people” and must honour the 2016 referendum result. She said the withdrawal agreement was “the only option” and indicated she would fight to save it.

Her team was divided over a call backed by ministers Amber Rudd, Greg Clark, David Gauke and Claire Perry to hold talks with moderate Labour MPs. The idea was hotly rejected by Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Liam Fox and Liz Truss.

There was another divide when Ms Rudd, the Work and Pensions Secretary, proposed an indicative vote in the Commons on a motion to rule out a no-deal Brexit. She was backed by Mr Clark, Mr Gauke and Mrs May’s de facto deputy David Lidington, but opposed by Andrea Leadsom, Mr Hunt, Ms Truss and Jeremy Wright.

Earlier, Scottish Secretary David Mundell all but admitted that tonight’s vote would be defeated when he described the crunch Commons decision as only “an initial vote”.

Other Cabinet ministers were increasing pressure on the Prime Minister to let Parliament hold votes to choose a Plan B if her own plan was crushed. There were rumours that two rising Conservative MPs were on the brink of resigning their posts: one was a parliamentary private secretary to a Cabinet minister and the other, a vice-chairman of the Conservative party.

Mrs May’s day began badly with news that Labour MP Hilary Benn was withdrawing an amendment that could have reduced the scale of her defeat.

In key other developments:

  • Environment Secretary Michael Gove quoted from the Game Of Thrones TV drama by warning that “winter is coming” if Mrs May’s deal is wrecked beyond repair. 
  • Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster branded the Irish border backstop “toxic” and said the 10 Northern Irish MPs would vote against the withdrawal agreement. Mrs Foster said on Twitter: “Tonight will be historic but for the wrong reasons.”
  • The pound was trading flat ahead of the vote. Sterling was down marginally against the US dollar at 1.286 and up 0.2 per cent against the euro at 1.123 in this morning’s trading. Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com, said traders should expect “considerable volatility” in days to come.
  • Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has said he will table a confidence vote “soon”, repeated his call for a general election.
  • Former European Council president Herman Van Rompuy said Brussels would clear the way for Britain to delay Brexit if it helped ensure a smooth exit. “I don’t think there would be a major problem to allow that possibility,” he said. The Evening Standard revealed last week that ministers think a delay is now inevitable.

Any pretence that the Government hoped to win was abandoned by Mr Mundell in an interview with BBC Radio Scotland this morning.

Hilary Benn had tabled an amendment to reject Theresa May's deal and prevent no-deal
PA

“My feeling now is that there’s a significant number of MPs who feel that they need to, in this initial vote, vote against the deal,” he said.

Pressed what he meant by an “initial vote”, he added: “The obvious option following this vote, if it wasn’t to go through, is to revisit the vote.” He said he did not want to see “repeat votes”, but thought MPs would change their minds after considering alternatives.

More than 100 Tory MPs have also declared their opposition to the plan, although the whips were said to have persuaded at least 20 to change their minds, with some tipped to recant during the debate itself.

Secretary of State for Scotland David Mundell
AP

Mr Benn’s amendment would have killed the Prime Minister’s deal and simultaneously ruled out a no-deal exit. It would have had the side-effect of ensuring that the main government motion would not have been pressed to a vote, thus cutting the number of rebels on a government motion.

The former Labour minister dropped his amendment after claims that Conservative Chief Whip Julian Smith was encouraging Tories to back it in order to have an excuse to call off the main motion and escape a greater defeat.

Michael Gove
PA

Mark Francois, a prominent Tory Brexiteer and former government whip, told the Standard: “Late last night we entered a Kafkaesque situation where government whips were apparently gearing up to tell Tory MPs to vote for the Benn amendment, even though it would negate the withdrawal agreement, purely to reduce the government losses. This leaked out and, as I understand it, on that basis Mr Benn withdrew his amendment.”

Mr Benn, who chairs the Commons select committee on exiting the European Union, said he pulled the amendment because he wanted “the clearest expression of view from the House on the Government’s deal”.

“If the Prime Minister loses tonight the Government must reach out across the House to try and find a way forward,” Mr Benn said. “If this doesn’t happen, then Parliament will have to take the lead.”

Mr Gove, one of the most prominent Leave campaigners in the 2016 referendum, went on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to try to persuade fellow Brexiteers that Mrs May’s blueprint offered the surest way of leaving the EU. “If we don’t vote for the deal tonight, in the words of Jon Snow [a character in Game Of Thrones], ‘winter is coming’,” he said. “I think if we don’t vote for the deal tonight we will do damage to our democracy by saying to people we are not going to implement a Brexit, and the opportunity that all of us have to live up to our democratic obligations is clear.” Mr Gove, however, declined to predict a victory for the Prime Minister. “Winter is coming” is a phrase from the HBO programme, whose stars include Kit Harington and Maisie Williams, and signals impending trouble.

Mr Corbyn claimed that only an election would end the impasse. “Theresa May’s deal is a bad deal for our country,” he said. “When it is defeated, the Prime Minister will only have herself to blame after two wasted years negotiating with her Cabinet and her bickering backbenchers instead of the EU.

“We need an election to have the chance to vote for a government that can bring our people together around an alternative and address the deep-seated issues facing our country.”

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