Theresa May’s Brexit deal descended into farce on Monday morning after the prime minister cancelled tomorrow’s crunch vote just minutes after Downing Street insisted it would go ahead.



In an emergency conference call with her cabinet, May told ministers that the meaningful vote on the UK’s withdrawal deal planned for Tuesday would not be going ahead.

The announcement came amid frenzied scenes at Westminster, where just minutes earlier the PM's spokesperson had insisted to journalists that the vote would be taking place.

May's decision was taken after government whips concluded they were likely to be defeated by a three-figure margin. This morning John Lamont became the 113th Tory MP to indicate they cannot support the deal.

BuzzFeed News is told May was lobbied to pull the vote by two groups of cabinet ministers over the last few days.

The first group of ministers loyal to May are said to have told her she could not survive such a heavy defeat on the key vote of her premiership and would likely have to resign if the vote went ahead.

The second group, according to sources familiar with conversations that took place last week and this weekend, consisted of ministers with leadership ambitions.

Members of this group, which includes defence secretary Gavin Williamson and international development secretary Penny Mordaunt, are said to have felt unable to vote for the deal as they know backing it would have personal ramifications in a future leadership contest.

"The ones who have never fought are now fighting," said a Whitehall source, referring to ministers who had previously stayed quiet about the deal but were now telling Downing Street to pull the vote.

"They have had Leave MPs telling them they can't walk through the lobbies and live to fight a leadership contest," the source said.

The PM is expected to return to Brussels to seek assurances over the backstop, the insurance policy against a hard border in Ireland in the withdrawal agreement that is loathed by MPs across the House of Commons.

But the EU insisted this morning that there could be no changes to the withdrawal agreement. Ireland's deputy prime minister Simon Coveney tweeted that the deal "is not going to change".