This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Theresa May has caved in to hardline Brexiters and accepted all four of their amendments to the customs bill, rather than allowing Jacob Rees-Mogg and colleagues to stage a show of parliamentary strength.

No 10 indicated that ministers would tell the House of Commons on Monday evening that the government had agreed to all four amendments put by members of the hard Brexit European Research Group (ERG).

A Downing Street source said the amendments “were consistent with the Brexit white paper” and that the government would support them when the taxation (cross border trade) bill was debated by MPs on Monday. The result is that Tory Brexiters will not be able to stage a vote of rebellion, but comes at the price of Downing Street accepting an amendment that the ERG had claimed would kill off May’s “facilitated customs arrangement”.

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The critical amendment would ensure HMRC could not collect duties or VAT on goods on behalf of the EU unless there was a reciprocal arrangement, which the Brexiters believed would kill off the customs plan because the bloc would reject it.

Earlier, Downing Street had suggested that it had concerns about this amendment and its impact on the customs plan. But after Rees-Mogg, the leader of the rebels, held talks with the party’s chief whip, Julian Smith, No 10 said it would accept the amendment and three others, so avoiding an embarrassing clash with backbenchers.

As the prime minister last week tried to sell her Chequers deal on Brexit to the public and her own MPs, the ERG tabled its amendments. Rebels were threatening to stage a show of strength, in which the number of MPs willing to back the ERG amendments would have been interpreted as a proxy for the number of MPs hostile to May’s Brexit strategy after she unveiled a new approach 10 days ago.

The other three amendments, including one making it illegal to establish a customs border in the Irish Sea, would harden stated government policy into law and were not deemed by No 10 to be controversial.

The ERG believed May’s “facilitated customs arrangement”, which would see the UK collect EU tariffs on some imports, and plans for a “common rulebook” for goods and agriculture, would allow for too close a future relationship with the EU27.



Tory remain rebels reacted with fury to the concessions, and said they would vote against some of the ERG amendments, in their own show of strength. Heidi Allen said: “I will never give ERG my backing.” She said she would vote against two of the amendments, which she said “fundamentally undermine the Chequers proposal and our PM”.

A separate soft Brexit amendment, calling for the UK to remain in the EU customs union was withdrawn on Monday. It had not been expected to be carried because while it had the support of Labour, the SNP and the Lib Dems, only a couple of Tory MPs – Anna Soubry and Ken Clarke – had put their names to it.

Scott Mann, the MP for North Cornwall, on Monday became the latest Conservative MP to resign a government post over the Chequers deal, in a rolling protest from concerned backbenchers.

Mann, a parliamentary private secretary at the Treasury, said in his resignation letter: “Elements of the Brexit white paper will inevitably put me in direct conflict with the views expressed by a large section of my constituents.”

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Dominic Grieve, a Tory remainer, gave reluctant backing to the prime minister’s negotiating strategy, arguing that May was “doing her best to minimise the damage that flows from the decision to leave the European Union” and that her approach was a lot better than the alternative being promoted by hard Brexiters.

Writing in the Evening Standard, Grieve said that “in a deeply divided country we must either work together to get the best deal we can” and accept compromise, or the Tory right should “accept that Brexit cannot be implemented”.

Fears are growing at Westminster that there is now no Brexit deal – not the Chequers plan, nor David Davis’s Canada-style trade deal, nor a no-deal scenario – that could command the backing of a majority of MPs.