Labour failure to rule out Brexit abstention hands potential lifeline to Theresa May in crunch vote

Jeremy Corbyn has insisted he will not back the PM's plan without a cross-party agreement

Labour has failed to rule out abstaining on Theresa May’s Brexit deal when it comes back to the House of Commons, handing the PM a potential lifeline in next month's make-or-break vote.

After face-to-face talks on Tuesday night, Jeremy Corbyn made clear that Labour will not support the bill without significant further concessions.

With eurosceptic Conservatives and Northern Irish Unionists denouncing the Withdrawal Agreement Bill as unacceptable, Labour abstentions look set to be Ms May’s only hope of ratifying Brexit before the summer.

Following more than six weeks of cross-party talks, a senior Labour source said “further moves” were needed from Downing Street to entrench proposed compromises and ensure they are not unpicked by potential future Tory leaders

And the source insisted there was “no question” of Labour backing WAB unless agreement has been reached, saying: “We are not in the business of getting into a car when we don’t know where it’s going.”

But pressed to rule out abstaining, the source said only: “We are not talking about the exact whipping arrangments or parliamentary processes at this stage. The essential point is we will not support the bill without agreement.”

Downing Street indicated that the Prime Minister intends to press ahead with a vote on the second reading of the bill in the week beginning June 3, regardless of whether agreement has been reached with Labour.

Discussions will continue not only with Mr Corbyn’s party but also Tory backbenchers and the DUP with the aim of producing “the broadest possible support” for the bill’s passage through the Commons , said one Number 10 source.

Asked whether Ms May would go ahead even if no such coalition can be assembled, he replied only: “We are going to bring the bill forward in that week.”

Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay said that defeat for WAB would be the final death knell for the deal laboriously negotiated over two years and agreed with the EU in November, telling a parliamentary committee that if the bill falls "then the Barnier deal is dead in that form and I think the House will have to then address a much more fundamental question between whether it will pursue... a no-deal option or whether it will revoke".

Number 10 declined to say whether WAB would be published ahead of the Whitsun recess, beginning on May 23, to give MPs time to digest the lengthy and complex constitutional legislation.

Asked how the Government will fit the vote into a week already crammed with activity around the state visit of US President Donald Trump, Ms May's attendance at D-Day commemorations in Portsmouth and France and the Peterborough by-election, the PM's spokesman replied: "We are fully aware of all the events taking place that week."

The spokesman refused to reveal whether Ms May will set out further detail on her plans for her departure when she meets Tory grandees on the executive of the 1922 Committee on Thursday.

Although the PM has said she will step down if Brexit is successfully ratified, the Committee are demanding “clarity” on her plans if WAB is defeated.

At Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons, she faced another call for her resignation from one of her own backbenchers.

Peter Bone told her that “loyal and dedicated” activists in his Wellingborough constituency had given him a clear message to deliver to the PM.

"They say that her deal is worse than staying in the EU, that they want us to come out now on a no-deal basis, and third, more importantly, they've lost confidence in the Prime Minister and wish her to resign before the European elections,” he said.

Theresa May faced a call to resign from one of her own backbenchers at Prime Minister's Questions (Parliament Live)

In a swipe at her backbench critics, the PM retorted: "If everybody in the House of Commons had voted along with the Government and the majority of Conservative members of parliament we would already have left the European Union."

NIgel Dodds, the DUP's Westminster leader, has said it is “highly likely” that Ms May’s deal will go down to a fourth defeat unless there is change to the Irish backstop element of the agreement “to protect the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom.”

And leading Tory Brexiteer Owen Paterson said: “Sadly, we will vote against it again. It doesn’t change the essential nature of the withdrawal agreement, which is unacceptable.”