UK Edition
Government whips in talks with 25 Labour MPs to push Chequers deal through Parliament
Ministers are in talks with as many as 25 Labour MPs to force through Theresa May's Chequers Brexit deal, risking open warfare with the party’s own MPs.
The Government’s whips’ office has spent recent months making contact with the MPs as a back-up option for when Mrs May’s Brexit deal is put to a vote in Parliament in early December, The Telegraph has been told.
News of the wooing operation has infuriated Eurosceptic Tory MPs, who are now threatening to vote against elements of the Budget and other “money bills” to force Mrs May to drop her Chequers plan.
Eurosceptic Conservative MPs back a looser Canada-plus free trade deal with the EU over the closer vision agreed by Mrs May’s Cabinet at her Chequers country home in the summer.
The scale of the talks would explain why Cabinet ministers are overwhelmingly confident that the Government can get its Chequers deal through the House of Commons.
One Government source said the whips were engaged in an "ingenious plan" to get “25 Labour MPs to vote" for the Chequers proposal when Parliament is given a meaningful vote on it before Christmas.
Number 10’s hope is that this will outgun a hard-core group of 20 Tory members of the European Research Group who will vote against the Chequers deal.
The source said it was "insanity" and the whips were playing “a very dangerous game” by trying to do deals with Labour.
A senior member of the ERG said they had heard of the Labour talks but had been assured by senior figures at Number 10 that “they would never do this”.
Labour MP Peter Kyle said the Prime Minister was "grovelling for help to get her dogs-dinner of a plan through. She won’t get it and doesn’t deserve it".
ERG sources claimed as many as 80 MPs of the ERG “won’t blink” and are threatening to vote against the Budget later this month to try to force the Government to change tack on Brexit.
The ERG is due to meet on Tuesday to set out their plans for a guerrilla campaign in Westminster against Mrs May's Chequers proposal.
One source said: “We are heading for a very bad place in the Commons, a place where a phalanx of Tory MPs simply won’t blink when presented with a choice – BRINO [Brexit In Name Only] or an election.
“This is a place where – unlike Maastricht – there’s already no Tory majority. So it will take far fewer to rebel by winning.”
A Number 10 spokesman declined to comment on the claims about the Labour talks, saying: "We have always said that we are concentrating on getting this through on Conservative votes."
Downing Street is bracing for another week of Brexit battles as it faces flashpoints with both Brussels and hardline Tory MPs.
Despite key EU leaders sounding more upbeat at the prospects of a deal in recent days, Brussels appears set to reject key aspects of Mrs May's Chequers proposals on Wednesday.
However, it was reported that Mrs May hopes to break the deadlock over the Irish border issue by keeping the EU's present customs arrangements beyond when the transition period is due to end in December 2020.
Anti-EU Tory MPs have made it clear to the PM that this option could last no longer than the slated general election in 2022, according to The Times.
That came as Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, said on Sunday that Japan would welcome Britain to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal “with open arms”, as he urged compromise to avoid a no-deal Brexit.
Mr Abe told the Financial Times the UK would lose its role as a gateway to Europe after Brexit, but would still be a country “equipped with global strength”.
The TPP is a wide-ranging trade agreement between 11 Pacific countries, including Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Canada, Mexico and Australia.
Britain can only join if it were to leave the EU’s customs union, and gains the power to set its own tariffs. “I hope that both sides can contribute their wisdom and at least avoid a so-called disorderly Brexit,” said Mr Abe.
Earlier on Sunday pop stars including Bob Geldof faced ridicule for telling the Prime Minister to “imagine Britain without music” if the UK exits the EU without a deal on Brexit.
A draft seen by The Observer - signed by Mr Geldof “and friends” including Ed Sheeran, Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker and Sir Simon Rattle - warned that a no-deal Brexit would be “a serious madness” and mean that British music is silenced “in a self-built cultural jail”.
However Tory Eurosceptics mocked the letter. ERG chairman Jacob Rees-Mogg told The Telegraph: “Handel did not need the free movement of people to come to England and compose the Messiah.”
Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister, added: “Ludicrous fairy tales like this are a disservice to the people of the UK. This nonsense just makes otherwise credible people look foolish.”
Mark Francois, a former Tory shadow Europe minister, added: "Bob Geldof needs to realise that the British people voted in a referendum to leave the European Union. As Abba songs are all the rage at the moment - the winner takes it all."
Separately foreign office minister Sir Alan Duncan said Mrs May would be "freer and happier" if she were "free of the shackles of Brexit".
The minister for Europe said Mrs May would "achieve a lot on the domestic agenda" and be a "different" Prime Minister if she did not have to deliver Brexit.