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Theresa May narrowly escaped a Tory Brexit revolt tonight as just one rebel - former Chancellor Ken Clarke - joined forces with Labour.

The pro-EU Conservative backbencher broke a three-line whip to support a plan for European judges to have power over the UK during a two-year post- Brexit transition, if one is agreed.

MPs voted by 316 to 295, majority 21, to defeat Labour’s amendment. Some Tory backbenchers are understood to have abstained on the vote.

Though there were not enough Tory rebels to beat the Government, the revolt is a warning to the Prime Minister as her flagship EU Withdrawal Bill makes its was through the Commons.

Earlier, Mr Clarke launched a blistering attack on Government plans to enshrine the Brexit time and date in law.

Mrs May risks harming the national interest so she can “throw a sop” to Leave-backing Cabinet members Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, warned the Conservative rebel.

(Image: PA)

The PM wants to write into law an EU exit date of 11pm on March 29, 2019. MPs will vote on the plan in coming weeks.

But they slammed the bid as they began line-by-line scrutiny of the flagship EU Withdrawal Bill.

The legislation, which switches EU laws onto the UK Statute Book and repeals the 1972 Act that took us into the European Community.

Ministers were expected to face a tougher test as votes stretched late into the night, with Labour trying to insist the European Court of Justice should continue to have jurisdiction over the UK during a two-year transition.

Former Chancellor Mr Clarke, a fierce pro-European, told the Commons a fixed Brexit deadline was “utterly foolish” when talks were stalled.

(Image: AFP)

Accusing ministers of “silly amendments thrown out because they got a good article in the Daily Telegraph”, he stormed: “It is quite unnecessary to actually close down our options as severely as we are with this amendment when we don’t know yet, when it is perfectly possible on all precedents that there is a mutually beneficial, European and British, need to keep the negotiations going for a time longer to get them settled.”

The original Bill did not include a specific date .

Inserting one now was “not just ridiculous and unnecessary - it could be positively harmful to the national interest”, warned Mr Clarke.

He was cheered by a handful of Remain-supporting Tory backbenchers, while some Labour and SNP MPs broke parliamentary rules by clapping.

Conservative former Attorney General Dominic Grieve said: “I find this amendment by the Government so very strange, because it seems to me to fetter the Government, to add nothing to the strength of the Government’s negotiating position, and in fact potentially to create a very great problem that could be brought back to visit on us at a later stage.”

The show of force by Tory rebels leaves Mrs May facing potential defeats as the Bill moves through the Commons.

Shadow Brexit Minister Paul Blomfield said more time may be needed to thrash out a deal with the bloc.

“If negotiations go to the wire both we and the EU 27 might recognise the need for an extra week, an extra day, an extra hour - even an extra minute or second in order to secure a final deal,” he said.

Earlier, the head of the PM’s policy forum said there was a “very real prospect” the UK would become an “isolated, small, insular, old, ageing economy” after Brexit.

Conservative MP George Freeman said the nightmare vision of Britain as “an old people’s home that couldn’t pay for itself” was one of two potential scenarios which could develop after EU withdrawal.

Brexit Secretary avid Davis promised to make bankers exempt from Brexit immigration curbs .

And MPs were told by an Aston Martin boss a no-deal Brexit would cause a “semi-catastrophic” halt in car production.

And Honda warned there could be no such thing as a “frictionless” trading border between the UK and EU if Britain leaves the Customs Union.

MPs hold a second committee stage debate on the Withdrawal Bill tomorrow where Labour plans to force a vote on protecting workers’ rights post-Brexit.