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Labour's John McDonnell says DUP's Arlene Foster is the 'real leader of the Conservative Party' after she told of sharing a phone call with the Prime Minister over the customs union.

The shadow chancellor suggested the phone call gave Mrs Foster - whose DUP party props up the Tories in parliament - to give Theresa may "her orders".

John McDonnell told the BBC's Andrew Marr "the Conservatives are going to fall apart on this" as wrangling over the Brexit strategy continued.

A decision on the Government's preferred customs option has been postponed after Theresa May's Brexit "war cabinet" failed to reach agreement.

A number of Cabinet ministers spoke out against the Prime Minister's hybrid customs partnership model, which would see Britain collect tariffs on behalf of the EU for goods destined for the block, with firms potentially claiming back a rebate if products remained in the UK on a lower-tariff regime.

Instead many of them back the so-called maximum facilitation option which would use technology to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

But critics say that would still require some kind of infrastructure between the north and the Republic.

Earlier on the programme the DUP's Arlene Foster had described how she had spoken to the Prime Minister about the contentious customs union issue on Saturday.

Referring to the Ms Foster, he said: "I think you've just heard from the real leader of the Conservative Party what their position is from them and Theresa May will have had her orders from yesterday's meeting."

The Labour frontbencher set out his party's plan saying: "What we have said very clearly - and I think actually quite a lot of the Conservatives are going to follow us in this - we remain within the customs union during the transition period, we want to negotiate a customs union, that will solve the Northern Ireland border problem, which I think is intractable."

Mr McDonnell said there "will be movement from the EU" towards the Labour position.

He told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show that as well as the customs union plan "we want to get as close to the single market as we possibly can".

McDonnell said voters wanted a "traditional British compromise".

Arlene Foster hit out at Brussels over the EU's stance on customs.

She told The Andrew Marr Show: "We don't believe that we have to stay in the customs union to have free flow between ourselves and the Republic of Ireland.

"We believe that there are ways to deal with this, and indeed, back in August of last year, as you know, the Government put forward various proposals. We were disappointed there wasn't the engagement from the European Union at that time."

Writing in The Sun On Sunday, Mrs May said she had an "absolute determination to make a success of Brexit, by leaving the single market and customs union and building a new relationship with EU partners that takes back control of our borders, our laws and our money".

She said the UK was "making good progress towards that goal and we will carry on doing so with resolution in the months ahead".