The Telegraph reports that Theresa May’s future as Prime Minister was saved by four Labour MPs on Tuesday as she avoided a critical Commons defeat on Brexit by the narrowest of margins. Twelve Remain-supporting Tory rebels defied their party by voting with Labour as they tried to force the Government to seek a customs union with the EU.
Conservative whips had warned their MPs that if Mrs May lost the knife-edge vote her authority would have been so badly undermined that it would trigger a general election.
The Guardian reports that “minutes earlier, May suffered her second ever Brexit defeat when the Commons, in an unexpected move, backed calls for the UK to remain under EU medicines regulation.
Just 24 hours earlier, the prime minister had caved in to hardline Tory Brexiters by accepting their amendments to the customs bill, infuriating remainer MPs and leaving Eurosceptics convinced they had killed off her Chequers plan.
Downing Street sources suggested, however, that the prime minister would be emboldened in her negotiations with Brussels by the result as it showed that she had the backing of parliament.
MPs voted 307 to 301 to overturn the rebel amendment to the trade bill under which Britain would be forced to join a customs union with the EU if no agreement were reached on frictionless trade by 21 January 2019.
Twelve Tory remainers, led by former ministers Stephen Hammond and Nicky Morgan, backed the proposal, which they claimed offered a safeguard in the event of there being no trade agreement with the EU in the run-up to Brexit on 29 March.
Sources claimed more Tory MPs would have rebelled if government whips had not threatened to pull the third reading of the bill and table a no confidence vote in May themselves if the vote was lost, raising the spectre of a general election.”
Read more here on The Guardian and The Telegraph.
Earlier
The Telegraph: Theresa May has seen off a damaging defeat in the House of Commons after Tory Remainer rebels attempted to force her to change her Brexit strategy.
Remainers attempted to force a move which would require the Government to strike a customs union agreement with the EU if Mrs May is unable to deliver by mid-January her Chequers plan for a UK-EU free trade area.
But the Government won the vote by 307 to 301, defeating rebels.
More will follow.
