Chequers mate: Theresa May ambush routs cabinet Brexiteers

Dominic Raab was appointed Brexit secretary by Mrs May after Davis’ resignation.

May signalled that, after finally nailing her colours to a vision for Brexit, she had chose to face down the dissenters, who do not form a majority in parliament. The double resignation on Sunday has the potential to derail May’s government and set in motion a chain of events that could lead to an attempt to oust her as prime minister.

Better, they argue, for Mr Johnson and the other Brexiteer cabinet ministers to stay and fight another day.

Loud applause could be heard at the end of the 1922 Committee meeting, which the PM attended for just over an hour.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a key Eurosceptic figure in the Tory party, said Mr Davis’s resignation was “very important that he has given great reassurance to backbench MPs” who opposed the Chequers agreement. May hopes it will jumpstart the acrimonious discussions about the terms of Brexit. It’s also just hours since Brexit Secretary David Davis quit in protest over May’s efforts to keep Britain closely bound to the European Union after the split, due in March.

The whole cabinet had been summoned to Chequers and spent more than 12 hours thrashing out the proposal for the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

She has also held talks in recent days with European Union president Donald Tusk and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who said he was also briefed on the plans.

He added that “it is possible that this deal is worse” than a “no deal” Brexit. It was reported that the former prime minister David Cameron had been drafted in before the meeting to urge him not to resign.

But Mrs May told the Sunday Times: “The only challenge that needs to be made now is to the European Union to get serious about this, to come round the table and discuss it with us”. “And one of the things about this compromise is that it unites the cabinet”.

May is under increasing pressure from European Union officials, companies and some lawmakers to move forward with negotiations to leave the European Union, a departure that will mark Britain’s biggest trading and foreign policy shift in nearly half a century.

She will tell MPs it was “the Brexit that is in our national interest” and “will deliver on the democratic decision of the British people”.

Other Brexit-supporting Conservative lawmakers have criticised the Chequers “peace deal”, saying that May’s plans offered a Brexit in name only, a betrayal of what they saw as her promise for a clean break with the EU.

“A deal that guarantees us access to the (EU’s single market) until such time as we chose regulatory divergence?…”

The UK would of course continue to play a strong role in shaping the global standards that underpin them, and Parliament would have oversight of the incorporation of these rules into the UK’s legal order – with the ability to choose not to do so, recognizing that this would have consequences.

There would be “a complete end to freedom of movement”, the “supremacy of British courts” would be restored, no more “vast sums of money” would be sent to Brussels.

What was the reaction in the Commons?

“Obviously if the Government and the Prime Minister continue to support that very poor offer then I won’t have any confidence in the Government or the Prime Minister”, Mr Bridgen said.

He added: “What we have here forms the basis for a good deal for Scotland”.

He said he was anxious the government’s negotiating approach would “lead to further demands for concessions” from Brussels.

What has been the reaction from the EU? “Today in detailed discussions the cabinet has agreed our collective position for the future of our negotiations with the European Union”.

“It’s taken two years to reach this collective position on trade talks and it’s still only the start”.

The uncertainty in the United Kingdom comes before the plan is officially put to the European Union, who may well be unhappy with aspects of it they have previously referred to as “cherry picking”.