Former UK Cabinet secretary seeks new Brexit referendum

On Tuesday, they vote on the Trade Bill – the one May’s government is most anxious about.

Amid rising backbench anger, MPs are set to vote today on a series of Commons amendments meant to wreck her Chequers plan for a “common rule book” covering a new “UK-EU free trade area”.

A party meeting last week looked to have snuffed out talk of a confidence motion challenging May’s leadership, which would require 48 Conservative members of parliament to initiate, and 159 to win.

Eight officials have quit since that summit, including two very high-profile Leave advocates, David Davis and Boris Johnson. Although she is not expected to be defeated in the vote, Johnson, who resigned over Brexit disagreements, is likely to hold a speech that will rally her opponents and force her to water down the planned negotiations approach. He said that he had taken the “very hard decision” to resign “to express discontent” in votes.

Or at least that is what well-placed sources tell me.

Theresa May faces a tough few days before MPs get ready for the summer recess.

Defending his record in office he added “don’t tell me that the United Kingdom is losing diplomatic influence” citing the worldwide response to the Novichok poisoning which saw 28 countries expel 153 “Russian spooks”.

Mrs May is under pressure from both pro and anti-Brexit wings of her Tory party and has suffered a succession of resignations from her government team in protest at her plan to keep close ties with the EU.

The House of Commons was originally set to break for the holidays next Tuesday.

She spoke out after Prime Minister Theresa May announced she had finally persuaded her divided cabinet to agree on a plan for future ties with the European Union, only for it to collapse spectacularly.

“Some people are saying they want to vote in the trade bill to keep us in the customs union”.

Ms Greening said other senior Conservatives quietly back a second referendum.

In an article for The Mail on Sunday, Theresa May warns rebels on both sides of her party that there is no other “workable alternative future trading relationship” to the plan agreed at Chequers, and fleshed out in a white paper this week.

The critical amendment adopted by the government on Monday said that HM Revenue & Customs could not collect duties or Value-Added Tax on goods on behalf of the European Union unless there was a reciprocal arrangement. It has been signed by 11 Tory MPs including former leader Iain Duncan Smith, former cabinet minister Priti Patel and Rees-Mogg.

Brexit-supporting Conservative backbenchers have forced the government to accept a series of amendments to its cross-border trade bill that appear to significantly alter the Brexit deal struck by the cabinet at Chequers.

The amendments to be voted on Monday are unlikely to pass without Labour support, but they represent a show of power by Brexiteer MPs toward the prime minister.

“An establishment elite who never accepted the fundamental right of the public to choose democratically their institutions are working towards overturning them”.