Tory MP Steve Baker has said he could vote to bring down Theresa May’s government if the prime minister backs a Brexit deal that includes a customs union with the EU.
The leading Brexiteer suggested he could resign the party whip and vote with Jeremy Corbyn the next time the Labour leader tables a motion of no confidence in the government.
“I think these things are coming onto the table,” he told the BBC’s Politics Live programme on Monday.
“I’m hoping not to reach that point. As a Conservative MP I would expect always to vote with government in a confidence motion,” he said.
“But we are approaching the point where the stakes are so very high and so transcend party politics.”
Baker warned the PM the Conservative Party would “shatter” if she decided to adopt a softer Brexit.
MPs will hold a second round of so-called “indicative” votes on alternatives to May’s Brexit deal this evening.
It is widely expected the option most likely to get a Commons majority is for a customs union – a much softer Brexit than the one offered by the prime minister.
The result of the vote is not binding on the government. But the PM will come under intense political pressure to adopt whatever parliament decides.
Tory chief whip Julian Smith has said that the parliamentary arithmetic means a “softer type of Brexit” is now inevitable.
Asked if the PM agreed with her chief whip, a Downing Street spokesman said: “In a number of speeches, the prime minister made it clear that there was a need to bring the country back together after the Brexit vote. That’s what she’s been working to achieve.”
David Gauke, the justice secretary, has warned May it would not be “sustainable” to ignore the will of parliament.
But Liz Truss, the chief secretary to the Treasury, told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme it was “not clear” to her that “going softer is the way to command support”.