Attorney General Geoffrey Cox has dismissed as “bollocks” a claim he was ordered to change his mind on Theresa May’s revised Brexit deal.
Westminster is waiting to see whether Cox agrees that “legally binding” changes to the agreement secured last night are enough to ensure the Irish backstop will not be be permanent.
His verdict, due to be published this morning, could be enough to persuade many Tory MPs to swing behind the deal and vote for it this evening.
MPs are due to vote on the prime minister’s deal from 7pm. With just 17 days to go until the UK is due to leave the EU, environment secretary Michael Gove said it was now “make your mind up time”.
Rejecting the deal could result in Brexit being “delayed or diluted”, he said in a message aimed at Tory eurosceptics.
In a boost for May, former Brexit secretary David Davis said he could now be prepared to vote for her deal.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Brexiteer European Research Group (ERG), said he could also be prepared to back to deal if Cox, the DUP and a committee of ERG MPs lent it their support.
Following last-ditch talks in Strasbourg ahead of a crunch Commons vote on Tuesday, May said she has now delivered what parliament asked her to do.
The PM said she “passionately believed” her Brexit deal addressed concerns raised by MPs who feared the backstop would keep the UK in a customs arrangement with the EU indefinitely.
The government argues that the document “reduces the risk that the UK could be deliberately held in the Northern Ireland backstop indefinitely and commits the UK and EU to work to replace the backstop with alternative arrangements by December 2020”.
The second new document is branded a “unilateral declaration by the UK” which sets out “the sovereign action the UK would take to provide assurance that the backstop would only be applied temporarily”.
The final document is a supplement to the Political Declaration “setting out commitments by the UK and the EU to expedite the negotiation and bringing into force of their future relationship”.
If the package passes the Commons, leaders of the 27 remaining EU states will be asked to endorse the new documents at a scheduled European Council summit in Brussels on March 21-22, before the final step of ratification by the European Parliament.
The PM said: “What we have secured is very clearly that the backstop cannot be indefinite. Cannot become permanent. It is only temporary. If it is the case that we were ever to get into the backstop.
“The legal instrument that we have agreed is an addition to the Withdrawal Agreement. It has the same legal status as the Withdrawal Agreement. It is legally binding.
“That is what Parliament asked us to secure and that is what we have secured.”
The European Commission president insisted there would be no further negotiations on the issue.
Juncker said: “There will be no new negotiations. It is this.
“In politics, sometimes you get a second chance. It is what we do with the second chance that counts. Because there will be no third chance.
“There will be no further interpretation of the interpretations and no further assurances on the reassurances. Let us be crystal clear about the choice – it is this deal or Brexit might not happen at all.”