Theresa May would go back to Brussels with “enormous firepower” to renegotiate her Brexit deal if the Commons backed an amendment watering down the Irish backstop provision, a senior Conservative backbencher has said before a crucial series of votes.
Graham Brady said he was hopeful of ministerial support for his amendment, which says the backstop should be replaced by “alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border”, even though Ireland has repeatedly stressed such a change cannot happen.
His is among a series of amendments intended to change the backstop that could be picked for voting on Tuesday night. Another group aims to prevent the possibility of a no-deal Brexit, if agreement cannot be reached in time.
The most prominent of the amendments, tabled by the Labour MP Yvette Cooper, would oblige the government to extend the Brexit deadline if an agreement had not been struck by the end of next month.
Nick Boles, the Tory backbencher who is pushing for the plan alongside Cooper, argued on Monday it was vital this amendment attract enough support to be passed.
“If we don’t seize the moment tomorrow afternoon then we’re at grave risk of just driving off the edge on 29 March, without really wanting to, and when there might be a compromise that we could achieve if had a few more months,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
There is speculation that the government could formally back Brady’s amendment, which is intended to bring back onboard the many Conservative and DUP MPs who voted against May’s Brexit plan when it was overwhelmingly defeated in the Commons earlier this month.
Much of the opposition centred around the backstop, the indefinite insurance policy that would keep Northern Ireland in customs alignment with the Irish Republic to…
