Pro-Brexit Tory MPs are threatening to vote down the budget to stop Theresa May allying with Labour MPs to push a ‘Soft Brexit’ deal through Parliament.
Reports have claimed the EU now wants Theresa May to get her deal through to stop a ‘No Deal’ Brexit, with the Prime Minister considering more concessions that could keep Britain tied to the bloc’s Customs Union for years.
Bernard Jenkin, a veteran eurosceptic, told a WhatsApp group of Tory MPs that May’s plan to push through a ‘Soft Brexit’ would “destroy party unity” this Friday, with Tory Brexiteers describing it as a betrayal and proposing to vote down budget motions later this month.
“She hasn’t got a majority and, by God, she’s going to be shown she hasn’t got a majority,” one told Jenkin, according to The Times.
Mr Jenkins added: “Make no mistake… a soft/non-Brexit pushed by the Conservative establishment but put through with Labour support will look like we are abandoning our supporters and remove any sense of obligation among Conservative Brexit-supporting MPs to continue to support the government.”
May’s secret bid to get Labour MPs to back her #Brexit deal
-Tomorrow’s Guardian pic.twitter.com/3huufxwFAc— Paul Johnson (@paul__johnson) October 5, 2018
Bedfordshire MP and Brexiteer Nadine Dorries slammed May’s “dirty deal” and Simon Clarke, the MP for Middlesbrough South, argued it would cost the Tories support in Brexit-voting seats in the north and Midlands.
“I don’t know how we argue that the Conservatives delivered Brexit if we go down this route,” he blasted.
This Saturday, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said the chances of a Brexit deal had increased, and that one could be agreed in a matter of weeks.
European Council president Donald Tusk also claimed on Thursday that the bloc had offered a “Canada+++” trade deal the to the United Kingdom “from the beginning”.
Writing in the left-wing Observer newspaper this Sunday, Mrs May meanwhile made an appeal to centrist voters put off by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s far-left agenda.
She promised “the best Brexit deal for Britain, one that protects jobs and rights and makes the most of the opportunities that Brexit brings, to play a more global role, while also delivering on the domestic issues that matter to people here at home.”
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