Labor MPs save Theresa May during a chaos day on Brexit



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In the end, it was a small group of Labor MPs who rescued Theresa May's government on Tuesday, helping the prime minister get through his last murderous vote on Brexit.

After Ms. May yielded to the demands of the uncompromising Brexiters in her party on Monday, it was her party's turn to rebel on Tuesday, as 12 pro-Europeans voted against the government.

Driven by fears that the Brexiters will successfully defeat Ms. May's strategy, the Europhiles mount a show of force, ignoring the party's warnings that a rebellion could trigger a vote of no confidence in Ms. May and even election.

As the negotiations unfolded behind the scenes, John Major, the former prime minister, told ITV News that the eurosceptics of today were "more engaged and harder" than the Rebels of the Maastricht Treaty in the 1990s.

Sir John, who campaigned to stay in the EU, said he feared that rebellions against Ms. May would cause general elections as early as Autumn and lead to Labor power.

The Europhiles expressed confidence that the vote, even if they had won it, "would not have crushed the government" and that Ms. May "would win" any challenge to her leadership. One said that it was important to show the EU that Jacob Rees-Mogg and the deputies of his European research group do not have the strength to tyrannize the prime minister in a harder Brexit.

In dramatic scenes in the House of Commons, pro-EU Conservatives openly negotiated with International Trade Minister George Hollingbery, only to reject his last-minute concessions on their call for Britain to remain in a union with the EU.

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Stephen Hammond, who tabled the amendment to the government's trade bill, rejected Mr. Hollingbery's last-minute badurances that number 10 would introduce a similar amendment when the law will pbad before the House of Lords.

The two men argue over the use of the word "union" in the rebel's proposed amendments, Mr. Hollingbery proposing a new amendment that left out the term after a last-minute exchange with Julian Smith, the party bad leader. .

Chris Pincher, Deputy Chief Party Whip, slipped to the Tory Remainers in the House of Commons and they were summoned to the outside of the House for private negotiations.

But the rebels insisted that their proposal was "exactly in line" with Ms. May's white paper and would help keep the bill "on the road" since they refused to yield to Government requests.