Government Defeated As Senior Tories Rebel In Bid To Block No-Deal Brexit

Parliament once again took back control of Brexit on Tuesday night as senior Tories rebelled against the government in a cross-party bid to block a “disastrous” no-deal. 

Ex-ministers and Theresa May-loyalists were among those who voted to curb the government’s fiscal powers should Britain look set to crash out of the EU on March 29.

The amendment to the Finance Bill, tabled by Labour’s Yvette Cooper, does not block no-deal in itself but means Chancellor Philip Hammond is banned from making Brexit-related tax changes without MPs’ say-so.  

The government was defeated on the amendment by 303 to 296 with the help of 20 Tory rebels.

Former Tory education secretaries Nicky Morgan and Justine Greening, ex-ministers Sir Oliver Letwin, Nick Boles, Dominic Grieve, Sir Nicholas Soames, Guto Bebb, Phillip Lee, Ed Vaizey and Jonathan Djanogly, as well as May’s former policy adviser George Freeman, were among them.  

It is the latest example of Westminster wresting control of Brexit as the Article 50 deadline looms and underlines the strength of opposition to no-deal. 

One of the most striking speeches came from Tory MP Sir Oliver Letwin, who supports May’s deal.

He stressed he did not want to rebel but “will continue to do so right up to the end of March” in the hope of ending the prospect of a “disastrous” no-deal. 

He said: “I want to make it abundantly clear to my honourable friends who are voting against the Prime Minister’s deal, which I shall be supporting, that the majority in this house will sustain itself, and we will not allow a no-deal exit to occur on the 29th of March.”