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Theresa May faces a fresh Tory rebellion amid claims Britain will pay a £36billion EU divorce bill.

Senior sources ­reportedly said much of the money would come from the UK keeping up its £9billion annual payments to ­Brussels for three years after Brexit in 2019.

This would be in return for similar trade and customs arrangements for that period as we enjoy today, so avoiding a “cliff edge” for business.

If agreed by the EU, the plan could also break the deadlock in negotiations and kick-start trade talks.

As most of the cash is already budgeted for, it would not have a major impact on public spending.

(Image: PA)

But hardline Tory Peter Bone suggested fellow Eurosceptics could block the move if it came to a vote in Parliament.

He said: “One of the prime reasons the UK voted to leave the EU was to stop sending them billions of pounds per year – so it would be bizarre to give the EU any money, let alone £36billion.”

Another right-winger, Jacob Rees-Mogg, added: “There is no logic to this figure. Legally we owe nothing.”

And ex-Cabinet minister John Redwood told LBC Radio it was “completely ridiculous” to suggest the UK would have to pay up simply to get Brussels to talk about trade.

(Image: PA)

Last night Mrs May tried to defuse the row. A No10 source dismissed the £36billion figure as ­“inaccurate speculation”.

The squabbling came as Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable claimed elderly voters, who felt economic pain was a price worth paying for Brexit, had “completely shafted the young”.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said they were “self-declared martyrs” imposing a “world view coloured by nostalgia for an imperial past”.