Theresa May set for another showdown with Brexiter Tories in Commons vote

Theresa May is set for another showdown with the pro-Brexit wing of her party on Thursday in a vote on the government’s negotiating strategy.

The Prime Minister will ask MPs to vote in favour of a motion supporting the plan for reopening talks with Brussels, agreed to by parliament last month.

While that involves backing the so-called Brady amendment – which calls for changes to the Irish backstop plan – it also means MPs will be supporting a call for the UK not to leave the EU without a deal.

Members of the Conservative European Research Group (ERG) are outraged at the move, and a delegation met the government chief whip Julian Smith on Wednesday night, urging him to change the motion.

That meeting seemed to have no impact, meaning May will ask her MPs to vote in favour of a plan which effectively takes ‘no deal’ off the table.

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen was furious with the move, believing it to be another example of the government trying to force a soft Brexit, with the UK still in the EU’s customs union.

He said: “We will effectively be a non-voting member of the EU – effectively a colony.

“So much for taking back control.”

As of Wednesday evening, ERG MPs had not decided whether to vote against the motion or merely abstain – but either way it could lead to defeat for a Prime Minister who only has a majority of 13, ten of which come from the DUP.

The row came as a leading German economic think-tank called for the EU to offer more concession to the UK in the Brexit talks.

Gabriel Felbermayr, head of the IFO Institute, warned the deadlock in the negotiations means “businesses are suffering already”.

He said German exports to the UK had fallen by about 10 per cent in real terms since the 2016 referendum and predicted German GDP could be 0.2 to 0.5 per cent lower in the long term because of Brexit.

Felbermayr urged the EU to soften its hard line to help mitigate potential economic disruption caused by Brexit.

"The EU should, as a quick fix at least, offer to remove both the backstop and the withdrawal agreement's current time limit on the mobility of goods and capital so that the provisional agreement would keep the EU and the UK in a joint customs territory association even after 2020 without making a difference between Northern Ireland and the UK. That would be key," he told the BBC.