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Writing exclusively in the Sunday Express, Mr Rees-Mogg, who until now has resisted criticising Mrs May, let rip at the Prime Minister, claiming she had abandoned her “Brexit means Brexit” mantra, wasted taxpayers’ money by “pretending” she would deliver Brexit and describing her as a “Remainer who has stuck with Remain”. His extraordinary broadside came as Mrs May was this weekend teetering on the brink of a full blown crisis within her party, with Brexiteer Tory MPs preparing to rebel against the Government’s flagship Trade Bill on Tuesday in the Commons. At the end of a torrid week for Downing Street, which saw David Davis and Boris Johnson resign from the Cabinet and Donald Trump forced into an embarrassing U-turn over a future UK-US trade deal, a new poll found that 33 per cent of Tory members would not vote for Mrs May at the next general election. Thirty per cent said they would not vote at all and three per cent said they would vote for an opposition party.

Jacob Rees-Mogg says PM has betrayed Leave voters

She always wanted a soft Brexit Jacob Rees-Mogg

Another survey found just 40 per cent of Conservative supporters backed Mrs May’s Brexit deal, thrashed out at Chequers and published in a White Paper last week calling for the UK to follow a common rule book with the EU after we leave. Just 18 per cent thought the plan would be good for Britain. Mr Rees-Mogg said the White Paper had not met any of the five tests Mrs May set out in her Mansion House speech on Brexit in March. “The common rule book is misnamed,” he said. “It is not common, it is the European Union Rule book which we will have to follow or face penalties.” Accusing Mrs May of being so “oddly secretive” in her “headlong retreat that even key Secretaries of State didn’t know”, he added: “She always wanted a soft Brexit. “The Chequers U-turn, the failure of the Mansion House test and abandonment of ‘Brexit means Brexit’ has broken trust. It would have been more straightforward to admit that no real Brexit was the intention all along rather than trying to gull Brexiteers. Perhaps we ought to have realised earlier on that a Remainer would stick with Remain.”

Mr Rees-Mogg has resisted criticising Mrs May, until now

In tearing up former Brexit Secretary Mr Davis’s White Paper and replacing it with a “timorous” version that “lacks courage”, Mr Rees-Mogg said Downing Street had “wasted time and money surreptitiously writing its own paper without telling him”. He added: “This is at best an untrusting way to behave and a more severe commentator would call it untrustworthy.” Last night an embittered Mrs May stuck by what she described as the Government’s “practical and pragmatic approach,” insisting it did deliver Brexit. “I know there are some who have concerns about the common rule book for goods and the customs arrangements which we have proposed will underpin the new UK-EU free trade area,” she said. “I understand those concerns. But the legacy of Brexit cannot be a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland that unpicks the historic Belfast Agreement. It cannot be the breaking up of our precious United Kingdom with a border down the Irish Sea. And it cannot be the destruction of integrated supply chains and just-in-time processes on which jobs and livelihoods depend. “This means we have to have friction-free movement of goods, avoiding the need for customs checks between the UK and the EU.

This cannot happen if products have to go through different tests for different markets, or if customs declarations have to be made at the UK/EU border. “I am yet to see a workable alternative future trading arrangement that would deliver on our commitments to Northern Ireland, preserve the integrity of the UK and deliver on the result of the referendum. But our Brexit deal for Britain achieves exactly this – and it can work.” Last week the mantra among Brexiteer Conservative MPs was “change the leader or change the policy”. Five Tories including Andrea Jenkyn and Andrew Bridgen are understood to be collecting names to force a vote of confidence in Mrs May amid rumours that 13 MPs have submitted letters to 1922 committee chairman Graham Brady in the past seven days alone. Government whips were last week said to be begging colleagues to withdraw letters to prevent the total reaching 48, the number that would trigger the crunch vote. Mr Rees-Mogg said he has no intention of submitting a letter but he and other Brexiteers have said they cannot vote for the White Paper as it stands. He has tabled four amendments to the Government’s trade legislation, one of which calls for a commitment to be enshrined in law that there will be no customs border in the Irish Sea. Mr Davis has indicated that he plans to back the amendment in a move that could force ministers into a climbdown. Other MPs have called for Mrs May’s chief Brexit adviser Olly Robbins – a Remainer civil servant thought to be the main architect of the White Paper – to be fired for undermining Mr Davis.

Top 10 of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s best Brexit quotes Thu, February 8, 2018 The Conservative MP is known for his upper-class mannerisms and traditionalist views Play slideshow AFP/Getty Images 1 of 10 ‘Civil servants are anti-Brexit’