Tory Brexit rebels inflict major defeat on Theresa May

Theresa May’s government has suffered a humiliating defeat in the House of Commons after MPs backed an amendment to her flagship Brexit bill, limiting the powers it will grant to ministers.

As the prime minister prepares to travel to Brussels to meet her fellow EU leaders on Thursday, the former attorney general Dominic Grieve appeared to have won the support of more than a dozen Tory rebels for “amendment seven”, promising MPs a decisive vote on the Brexit deal before Britain leaves.

MPs waved their order papers as the result of the crucial vote was read out, revealing that the government had been defeated by 309 votes to 305.

A series of last-minute concessions by the Brexit secretary, David Davis, and his fellow Brexit minister Dominic Raab, and an intensive campaign by Conservative whips, failed to win over rebels.

Davis tabled a written statement on Wednesday morning, promising MPs a vote on the final Brexit deal, before Britain leaves in March 2019.

“The government has committed to hold a vote on the final deal in parliament as soon as possible after the negotiations have concluded. This vote will take the form of a resolution in both houses of parliament and will cover both the withdrawal agreement and the terms for our future relationship,” the statement said.

But the rebels were unmoved, warning that they were concerned about the scope of the so-called Henry VIII powers granted to ministers in the withdrawal bill, allowing ministers to change the law without full parliamentary scrutiny.

Just minutes before the vote was due, Raab said the government would table its own amendment later in the bill’s passage through the parliament, to put into law the idea of a meaningful vote on the final deal.

Grieve insisted: “It’s too late.” But the last-minute concession appeared to have bought over some Conservatives. George Freeman, the former chair of the prime minister’s No 10 policy unit, suggested during the debate he was minded to rebel, but in the end abstained. Similarly, Paul Masterton another potential rebel, abstained.

In a passionate half-hour long speech earlier in the debate, Grieve warned that the bill as it stood would unleash “a form of constitutional chaos”.

He said he had sought to engage with ministers to find a compromise, but without success: “The blunt reality is, and I’m sorry to have to say this to the house, I’ve been left in the lurch, as a backbench member trying to improve this legislation.”

During an eight-hour debate in the Commons, Tory MPs repeatedly clashed in a series of spiky exchanges.

Grieve was backed by longstanding Conservative rebels, including Antoinette Sandbach and Anna Soubry.

Another unexpected backer of the amendment was Charlie Elphicke, the MP for Dover who is currently suspended from the Conservative whip over sexual harassment allegations. Elphicke said voters had backed Brexit partly because they wanted to support “the rule of law”.

Soubry said: “There comes a time when you have to set aside party differences and even party loyalty and you have to be true to what you believe in, and perhaps that time is now.”

Raab urged Grieve to withdraw his amendment, but Grieve insisted he was determined to push it to a vote.

Tory whips spent the day pressing backbenchers to reject the Grieve amendment, and several of them were called into No 10 in a last-minute attempt to persuade them to change their minds.

Relations with the “mutineers”, as they were dubbed by the Daily Telegraph, have deteriorated so much that some were even threatened with legal action if they made false public remarks about the activities of the government’s whips.

At least one potential rebel was warned by the chief whip, Julian Smith, that they could be sued if they made defamatory comments about the whips’ activities.

Another backbencher described the approach of the whips, who are responsible for party discipline, as “bullying junior MPs”. - The Guardian