Brexit rebels including Guto Bebb and Anna Soubry force Prime Minister to change tack as government backs down on Customs Bill amendments | Morning Wire

​The government yesterday backed down on four key amendments put forward by leading Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg, narrowly pushing them through a House of Commons vote late last night.

The amendments to the Customs Bill appear to signal a sharp change in direction compared to the white paper agreed at Chequers just 11 days ago, which subsequently sparked a string of resignations by Brexit-supporting members of Theresa May’s government.

The most controversial of the four amendments scraped through parliament by 305 votes to 302, narrowly avoiding a bizarre double-humiliation for the government. Another of the amendments to pass also scraped through by just three votes.

While appeasing Brexit supporters, the move yesterday riled Tory MPs from the Remain-backing wing of the party.

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“Having made great strides with her Brexit white paper to meet the needs of business, the PM has allowed it to be wrecked by caving in to the hard no deal Brexiteers,” said outspoken Broxtowe MP Anna Soubry.

Nonetheless, Soubry and other Remainer backbench Tory MPs were unable to stop the amendments passing, despite government minister Guto Bebb joining them and therefore resigning from his position in the Ministry of Defence.

Earlier in the day May was hit by another resignation after Scott Mann, a ministerial aide to the Treasury, quit in protest at the Chequers deal and its proposals for a “watered down Brexit”. Yet it soon emerged that Number 10 was prepared to toughen its stance, accepting all four of the Brexiter amendments. The amendments relate to the trading of goods across UK-EU borders after Brexit, including at the Irish border.

The amendment which passed 305-302 and was tabled by former Cabinet minister Priti Patel, was originally viewed as a “wrecking amendment”, demanding that May drop her plan to collect tariffs on behalf of the EU unless EU member states agree to do so in reverse.

A Downing Street source said this amendment had been accepted as it was “consistent with the position set out in the white paper”.

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However, Brexiters argued it will ultimately kill the PM’s controversial facilitated customs agreement, and amounts to “a torpedo right through the middle of Chequers”.

One eurosceptic source said: “We drew up that amendment so it would be unacceptable, so that they would have to fight and lose… We weren’t expecting they would accept it but that just shows the direction of travel. Chequers is a poison pill the Tories can’t afford to swallow.”

Another added: “I don’t think they will need to tear up the whole white paper, but there’s a lot of technical things they need to [change], and [they need to] get rid of the ambiguity they were trying to hide behind.

“The amendment demonstrates that we have to toughen our act up with the EU. I think that message has got through now.”