Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs likely to back move to force Theresa May to publish white paper spelling out Brexit strategy

Conservative backbenchers have not given up the battle to force the government to publish a white paper spelling out its priorities for Brexit, despite No 10 making clear Theresa May’s speech is the only plan they intend to produce.

With the government awaiting the verdict in the supreme court appeal over whether it must give parliament a vote on triggering Brexit, MPs said they could seek to amend any bill that comes to parliament to force the government to table a formal white paper. Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs would be likely to back such a move and plan to coordinate their approach with moderate Conservatives.

The call for a white paper to be published – rather than the broad principles set out in the prime minister’s Lancaster House speech – was endorsed by the cross-party Brexit committee at the weekend.

But Downing Street believes May has satisfied demands, set out in a motion passed by the House of Commons and backed by the government last year, to reveal its plan.



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Anna Soubry, the de facto leader of the group of Conservatives seeking to retain the closest possible relationship with the EU, urged the Brexit secretary, David Davis, to “commit to putting those 12 objectives into a white paper and bringing it to this house so that we can finally debate the single market, the customs union and the free movement of people. So far, we have not, and many of us feel that parliament has been deliberately precluded from all this.”



May’s speech, which set out a vision of a “global Britain”, was widely regarded at Westminster as politically shrewd. One senior Brexit strategist said the Vote Leave campaign could have written much of it and wouldn’t have disagreed with a word.

The prominent leave campaigner Dominic Raab, MP for Esher and Walton, said: “This is a detailed and positive plan for an ambitious post-Brexit Britain. As an independent, self-governing democracy, we want to be a firm friend to Europe but a global player with the broadest horizons. It’s time to turn the page from the referendum and unite as a country, so Britain can go from strength to strength.”

Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, who led the leave campaign, praised a “fantastic speech” on Facebook. He has been keen for the prime minister to make a clean break with the EU rather than seeking to remain inside the single market.

The former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: “I can hardly believe that the PM is now using the phrases and words that I’ve been mocked for using for years. Real progress.”

That could make it hard for Ukip to compete with the Conservatives in the forthcoming byelections in Copeland and Stoke on Trent Central by claiming May was backsliding on Brexit.

But pro-remain Tory backbenchers also welcomed the speech, believing that while May had conceded Britain wouldn’t remain a formal member of the EU single market, her pledge to seek a “bold and ambitious” free trade deal – to “allow for the freest possible trade in goods and services between Britain and the EU’s member states” – could allow her to replicate many of the key elements of the single market without the name.

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Ben Howlett, the MP for Bath, said: “I’m pleased the prime minister has listened to Conservative backbenchers who have called for a vote on the final deal in parliament. I still want to see Britain retain all the benefits of a single market, and call on the government to hold a full debate.”

Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, went further, suggesting the prime minister was “ruling out a hard Brexit at this stage” and had caved in to Labour demands to seek tariff-free access to the single market.

“For many months, we in Labour have been demanding fullest possible access to the single market, emphasising the risks of leaving the customs union, arguing for a collaborative relationship with our EU partners, emphasising the need for transitional arrangements and the entrenchment of workers’ rights. Today the prime minister has rightly accepted these in her plan and I acknowledge that.”

Labour’s shadow cabinet has accepted that it is not practical to continue to argue for full membership of the single market, which Starmer said would formally lapse when Britain left the EU anyway.

But the Liberal Democrats, who still hope Brexit can be averted, accused Labour of falling in line behind the government. Alistair Carmichael, the MP for Orkney and Shetland, said: “The government has identified two mutually exclusive objectives. On the one hand they want to leave the customs union and the single market while at the same time they say they want to maintain tariff-free access to the single market. Any opposition worth their name would point out that these goals are mutually exclusive.”

The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, who has suggested that Labour should be willing to accept continued free movement as the price of a good deal on single market access, struck a markedly different tone to Starmer, saying May was “putting controls on immigration above any anything else, including the health of the economy and the British people’s living standards”.