May narrowly heads off defeat after caving in to Brexit hardliners
Source: The Guardian
Theresa May narrowly saw off a Commons rebellion from Tory remainers unhappy that she had caved in to hardline Brexiters by accepting their amendments to the customs bill to head off a leadership challenge before the summer break.
The government majority was reduced to just three votes on the most controversial amendment after leading Tory remainer Anna Soubry complained that the prime minister had lost control of events by making concessions to the rightwing European Research Group of MPs.
The most important of the four amendments from the ERG, chaired by Jacob Rees-Mogg, had been designed to frustrate May’s compromise proposals over customs arrangements agreed at Chequers and had been initially been opposed by the government until Downing Street made a sudden U-turn in the afternoon.
No 10 concluded that all four amendments were “consistent with the Brexit white paper”, a decision that so incensed Tory remainers that they vowed to vote against the amendments in Monday night’s Commons debate.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/16/theresa-may-narrowly-avoids-defeat-after-caving-in-to-rees-mogg
General opinion is that this fundamentally changes what had been put forward in the Chequers cabinet meeting and the published "white paper".
The Labour MP, Chuka Umunna, had earlier said Bebb was among those MPs voting against the government, which – if true – made his resignation inevitable.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/jul/16/brexit-mays-plan-dead-say-tory-remainers-and-leavers-jointly-ahead-of-key-votes-politics-live?page=with:block-5b4d0d59e4b017453414c90a#block-5b4d0d59e4b017453414c90a
