Theresa May is on her way to Strasbourg for last ditch talks with the EU in an attempt to win concessions to help her avoid a crushing defeat on her Brexit deal in Tuesday’s meaningful Commons vote.
The prime minister will hold talks with European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker on the disputed Irish border backstop, which Tory Brexiteers and the DUP will not support in its current form.
Downing Street attempted to play down suggestions that May’s last minute trip – which has been up in the air for most of Monday – means a deal is there to be done on the backstop.
But following a meeting with the PM’s chief whip, senior Tory Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith said he thinks “they are reaching a point where they are about to have some kind of agreement”.
Duncan Smith was part of a delegation of key Tory MPs who have been backing the so-called Malthouse compromise plan to replace the backstop with “alternative arrangements”, including using technology and trusted trader schemes to keep the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic invisible.
The key will be how any agreement changes Attorney General Geoffrey Cox’s legal advice on the backstop, which previously warned that it could trap the UK indefinitely in a customs union with the EU, leaving it unable to strike free trade deals around the world.
Earlier, Brexit minister Robin Walker told MPs that Cox will publish updated advice before the Commons sits at 11am on Tuesday.
Duncan Smith said Tory Brexiteers would also seek a legal opinion from their own so-called “star chamber” of eight lawyers before deciding whether to back the deal and promised to “keep a completely open mind”.
“It sounds like they think that they’ve got something”
- Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith after meeting Theresa May's chief whip
The former Tory leader told BBC News: “I think they are reaching the point where they are about to have some kind of agreement, I’m speculating but that’s my indication, and I think there will be a statement tonight at around 9pm tonight, one in Strasbourg and one here in the House of Commons.
“Then they will lay the (meaningful vote) motion, as amended, then that will be voted on tomorrow.
“But there needs to be time to look at the legalities of this.”
He went on: “It’s tight but we have to do all that work before reaching a final conclusion.
“But it sounds like they think that they’ve got something.”
Earlier, fellow members of the Malthouse group set out proposed changes that could potentially win their support.
In the Commons, former cabinet minister Nicky Morgan called for a January letter of assurance from Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk to be put into a legally binding text.
In it, the EU promised to work “speedily” to ensure alternative arrangements to the backstop are in place by the end of the post-Brexit transition period on December 31, 2020.
It also said that if those arrangements were not ready, the aim would be for the backstop to be in place for “as short as possible” a time if it ever came into force, and committed the EU to “best endeavours” to negotiate an alternative quickly.
Morgan said: “Isn’t the nub of this matter actually better served by having a forensic examination of the January letter from presidents Tusk and Juncker, where much has already been conceded by the EU, and what is now needed for that to be turned into legally binding text?”
Another former cabinet minister, Owen Paterson, called for the taskforce the EU has agreed to create to look at alternative arrangements to the backstop should be put into legally binding text “so there will be an implementation date which is fixed for the future”.