Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Theresa May’s set to make ‘major’ Brexit concessions to Labour on Tuesday… Theresa May will take a final desperate gamble to deliver Brexit this week by offering Jeremy Corbyn three major concessions in a bid to force MPs to back a new deal. The prime minister will show her hand on Tuesday, making a “big, bold” offer to the Labour leader which could split the Conservative Party down the middle. The Sunday Times has learnt she will outline plans for a comprehensive but temporary customs arrangement with the EU lasting until the next general election, which Corbyn will be able to depict as a Tory cave-in to his demands. May and her negotiating team will agree that Britain will also align with a wider range of EU single market regulations on goods. Finally, they will enshrine in law that the UK will mirror all EU legislation on workers’ rights. “There are three main areas: customs, goods alignment and workers’ rights,” said one source involved in the talks. “The Conservative Party will have to suck up concessions on each of those.” – Sunday Times (£) Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are days away from a deadlock Brexit deal after local elections drubbing piles on pressure – The Sun Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn to finalise Brexit deal ‘stitch up’ next week – Sunday Express …as she urges Jeremy Corbyn to do a Brexit deal… Theresa May has called for Jeremy Corbyn to “put their differences aside” and agree a Brexit deal. The UK was supposed to leave the EU on 29 March – but the deadline was delayed until 31 October, after MPs rejected Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement three times. Mrs May is now seeking Labour support to get an agreement through Parliament. Writing in the Mail on Sunday, she said they should “listen to what voters said” in Thursday’s local elections. The Conservatives lost 1,334 councillors, while Labour failed to make expected gains, instead losing 82 seats. The Liberal Democrats benefited from Tory losses, gaining 703 seats, with the Greens and independents also making gains. The prime minister blamed the Brexit impasse for the losses – but said the elections gave “fresh urgency” to find a way to “break the deadlock”. Mrs May said she hopes to find a “unified, cross-party position” with Labour – despite admitting that her colleagues “find this decision uncomfortable” and that “frankly, it is not what I wanted, either”. Talks between Labour and the Conservatives are to resume on Tuesday. – BBC News May steps up calls for Labour to agree a Brexit deal – Reuters …but anger grows at the prospect of May and Corbyn stitching up a Brexit deal Last-ditch efforts by Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn to strike a compromise on Brexit looked doomed on Saturday as the party leaders faced mounting revolts from their own MPs and activists. Following Thursday’s local elections in which both the Conservatives and Labour were punished severely by voters for failing to break the political deadlock, May and Corbyn have insisted their parties must now urgently agree a way forward in cross-party talks which will resume on Tuesday. On Saturday the prime minister reiterated her appeal, saying: “We have to find a way to break the deadlock. I believe the results of the local elections give fresh urgency to this.” But opposition MPs and Tory Brexiters warned any deal the leadership teams stitch up behind the scenes would face inevitable defeat in parliament and cause more acrimony in the parties. The Observer can reveal that 104 opposition MPs, mainly from Labour but also SNP, Change UK, Green and Plaid Cymru, have written to May and Corbyn insisting they will not back a “Westminster stitch-up” unless there is a firm guarantee that any deal is then put to a confirmatory referendum. The MPs say: “The very worst thing we could do at this time is a Westminster stitch-up whether over the PM’s deal or another deal. This risks alienating both those who voted leave in 2016 and those who voted remain.” They say that, “whatever the deal” is, it must be the subject of another referendum so voters can have the “final say”. – Observer Matt Hancock hints at Brexit compromise after local election losses The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has hinted that the government may be prepared to reach a compromise with Labour on a post-Brexit customs union arrangement with the EU. He said the local election results on Thursday were a call from voters to “deliver Brexit and then move on”. The Conservatives lost more than 1,300 seats in Thursday’s elections, their biggest setback since John Major was prime minister. Labour had been expected to make gains, but instead suffered a net loss and also lost control over a string of councils. The remain-supporting Liberal Democrats were the major beneficiaries, taking control of 10 councils. Hancock said he shared the frustration of voters who were keen for politicians to move on to other pressing issues. “We need to be listening to these results from these local elections which are about ‘deliver Brexit’, not ‘deliver this particular form of Brexit’,” he told Radio 4’s Today programme. – Observer Labour and Tories must use election ‘kicking’ to deliver a Brexit deal – and they are very close, says Ruth Davidson Ruth Davidson has urged the Tories and Labour to use the “almighty kicking” they got in the local government elections to deliver a Brexit deal and claimed the two sides are very close. The Scottish Conservative leader used her comeback speech following her return from maternity leave to argue the losses suffered by both parties showed angry voters wanted them to “get Brexit sorted.” Speaking at the Scottish Tory conference in Aberdeen, she warned they would receive an even bigger “wake-up call” at the European elections on May 23 if they failed to reach a compromise. In a media briefing afterwards, she said she understood that the two sides “are getting closer and closer” and agreement could be reached within the next few days. She opposed calls for the Prime Minister to name her departure date following the disastrous election results, arguing this would be counterproductive while negotiations were continuing. – Sunday Telegraph (£) Ruth Davidson says Tories and Labour getting closer to Brexit deal – Observer Ruth Davidson adds pressure to Brexit talks – FT(£) Don’t build a ‘coalition against the people’, Nigel Farage warns May Theresa May will be entering a coalition with Jeremy Corbyn “against the people” if she agrees a customs deal with the Labour leader, Nigel Farage has warned. The Leave campaigner said his burgeoning Brexit Party would field a full slate of candidates against Tory and Labour MPs in a general election and “break the two party system” if Mrs May and Mr Corbyn made a pact to keep the UK tied to EU rules. The warning came as calls for Mrs May’s resignation mounted last night following a dismal showing for the Tories in the local elections and as she prepared to reach a deal with Labour on a Brexit plan, having failed to win support for her own deal. Mr Farage, whose party is expected to win votes from millions of disaffected Leave supporters, told The Telegraph: “If the Tories do a deal with Labour on the customs union they will be going into coalition with the Opposition against the people.” The former Ukip leader added that if the two parties reached a deal, the Brexit Party would harness anger in the country and “explode underneath them”. – Sunday Telegraph (£) May must go now, says Iain Duncan Smith Theresa May must resign or the Conservatives should force her out, after the party’s heavy local election losses, Iain Duncan Smith has said. The former Tory leader called Mrs May a “caretaker PM” and described her attempts to reach a Brexit deal with Labour as “absurd”. The party suffered its worst local election result in England since 1995. Other senior Conservatives have urged Tory MPs to compromise with Labour to ensure Brexit is delivered. Elections were held on Thursday for 248 English councils, six mayors, and all 11 councils in Northern Ireland. No elections took place in Scotland or Wales. The Conservatives lost 1,334 councillors, while Labour failed to make expected gains, instead losing 82 seats. The Liberal Democrats benefited from Tory losses, gaining 703 seats, with the Greens and independents also making gains. Following the results, Mrs May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn both insisted they would push ahead with talks seeking cross-party agreement on leaving the EU. Mrs May said it was clear the public wanted “to see the issue of Brexit resolved”. – BBC News Theresa May must resign or be forced out, says Iain Duncan Smith – Observer IDS issues Tory ultimatum over doomed Brexit strategy – Either May goes or we make her – Sunday Express May must go now, says Iain Duncan Smith – Sunday Times (£) May must set date for departure ‘or MPs will do it for her’, former Tory leader warns PM – Independent Jeremy Hunt blames hardline Brexiteers for Tories’ poor local election performance Purist Brexiteers in the Conservative Party are partially to blame for the Tories’ drubbing in the local elections, Jeremy Hunt has said as he warned against holding a general election before the UK has left the EU. The Foreign Secretary said the Government could have done things differently in the Brexit negotiations, but also took aim at his own colleagues for refusing to compromise and putting withdrawal in “peril”. His party shed hundreds of councillors and lost control of more than 20 authorities in the polls on Thursday, which Mr Hunt described as a “tough” night. – iNews The farce of fighting the EU elections will cost us £109 million… Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are now resigned to fighting EU elections – at a cost of £109million. Even if the PM and Labour leader strike a deal as expected this week there is no longer enough Parliamentary time to get it through before polling day. That means Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party is on course to win around 30 of the 73 seats up for grabs on May 23. But a Cabinet source told the Sunday Mirror that British MEPs will be abolished if a new EU withdrawal agreement bill is passed by June 30. They cannot take their seats before the EU Parliament’s first session begins in July. Which means the £109million bill for the EU elections would be a shameful waste of taxpayer money. There are growing hopes that Mrs May and Mr Corbyn can agree a customs union compromise on Tuesday which will see Brexit going through with the help of Labour votes. – Sunday Mirror …as the Irish Deputy PM says Britain should leave the EU before the MEPs take their seats Britain should leave the EU this summer before MEPs have to take their seats, the Irish deputy prime minister has told The Sunday Telegraph, demanding rapid “decisions” to end the Brexit deadlock in Westminster. In an interview in which he dismissed Brexiteer demands for a tougher line with Brussels as “just rhetoric”, Simon Coveney urged both Labour and Tories to seek a middle ground following this weeks punishing local election results. “We need decisions because this absence of a decision, and the vacuum that it creates – for businesses, for politicians, and for many countries in Europe – is damaging for us all,” he said, urging MPs to make progress, “this side of the Summer.” Last month Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, said that Europe had no interest in 50 “disruptive and resentful” British MEPstaking their seats in Strasbourg, as he warned fellow Tories of the rising threat posed by Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party. But Mr Coveney, who has been at the centre of Ireland’s Brexit negotiation strategy, was withering about the prospect of renegotiating the Irish backstop, as several leading Brexiteers hoping to replace Theresa May as Tory leader have promised to try and do. – Sunday Telegraph (£) Irish Deputy PM fires warning at UK – ‘Leave EU before MEPs take seats’ – Sunday Express Tory defector Annunziata Rees-Mogg might contest Peterborough by-election for Brexit Party Tory defector Annunziata Rees-Mogg could run for Parliament as a Brexit Party candidate in the Peterborough by-election on June 6, party sources have said. Ms Rees-Mogg, 40 – a former Tory parliamentary candidate and sister of Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg – caused a sensation last month when she appeared at the launch of Nigel Farage’s new party to announce that she would stand for them in the European elections. Now Ms Rees-Mogg is considering fighting the Peterborough seat vacated by MP Fiona Onasanya. The Labour politician became the first parliamentarian in British history to be stripped of their seat by recall petition after she was jailed for lying to police about a driving offence. At the last Election, Labour won a wafer-thin 607-vote majority in the Leave-voting area with 60.9 per cent backing Brexit. But Mr Corbyn’s party and the Tories’ appeal to voters have been damaged by their failure to deliver Brexit. – Mail on Sunday Electoral Commission’s £436,000 bill fighting Brexit campaigner The elections watchdog is spending more than £400,000 defending its decision to fine a pro-Brexit campaigner £20,000. Court papers reveal Electoral Commission estimates that the cost of resisting appeals by Darren Grimes will amount to £436,000, after the body recruited James Eadie QC, the Government’s most senior advocate, to argue its case in court. The watchdog fined Mr Grimes, the founder of the BeLeave campaign group, last year after concluding that he had wrongly reported £620,000 of spending on the 2016 Brexit referendum. Mr Grimes insists he is “completely innocent” and that he is being pursued simply for “ticking the wrong box”. – Sunday Telegraph (£) Theresa May: My message to Corbyn – People want politicians to get Brexit over the line, so let’s do a deal In the local elections, many Conservative councillors lost their seats. I want to thank all of my colleagues for their tremendous hard work and dedication to public duty, and for all they did to improve the lives of the communities which they served. I have been a councillor and I know what a rewarding and important job it is. They did not deserve what happened and I am sorry. It is clear that the voters delivered their judgment in large part based on what is happening – or not happening – at Westminster. And, as Prime Minister, I fully accept my share of the responsibility for that. The voters expect us to deliver on the result of the referendum and, so far, Parliament has rejected the deal which I have put forward. The March 29 exit date has been delayed, the public is frustrated – and I fully understand why. Three years have passed now since the historic 2016 vote and people really do just want us to get on with it. But the electorate delivered a message on Brexit to Labour, too. Labour also lost seats and councils which it has held for decades. Clearly, the public is fed up with the failure of both of the two main parties to find a way to honour the result of the referendum, take the United Kingdom out of the European Union and to bring our country back together again. – Prime Minister Theresa May MP for the Mail on Sunday David Davis: After the elections disaster Theresa May must go back to the EU and get a better deal or leave calmly and speedily without one Millions of protest votes. Record numbers of spoilt ballot papers. If ever elections have sent a clear message to politicians about what voters want it is this week’s local elections. At polling stations up and down the country the voters told us that they were fed up of politicians failing to deliver Brexit, and failing to keep their word that they would respect the referendum vote, allow the UK to take back control and leave the EU. In fact, it is actually even stronger than that. Voters are sick to death of the deceit and manoeuvring that has taken place in Westminster. They have had enough and were determined to punish those who in their view had failed to deliver on the promise of both the referendum and the last General Election. Steve Tulley, Labour councillor for Wakefield, was scathing when he spoke about Yvette Cooper, one of the leading opponents of Brexit at Westminster, when he said: “There have been some wonderful candidates who have lost tonight. “And it’s all because of the MP for Pontefract, Normanton and Castleford, who wouldn’t know what democracy was if it scratched her in the eyeballs. “This district voted to leave the EU, and the way she has carried on has caused this council problems. “It’s time them down in Westminster started taking a bit of notice to what the people have said. It’s their antics that have cost us tonight.” – David Davis MP for The Sun Daniel Hannan: The Tories have only days left to boot out Theresa May – and save the party from obliteration The problem is Theresa May. Not her policies. Not her Withdrawal Agreement. Her. Ask people who knocked on doors at the recent council elections, and they will all tell you the same thing. Unless the Conservatives switch leaders now, they face obliteration. The PM, naturally, doesn’t share this analysis. She should, after all, have stepped aside several times already according to all the usual conventions, but she seems genuinely not to recognise the rules by which everyone else plays. By every precedent and norm, she should have gone after losing her majority in 2017. She should have gone when the ministers carrying out her Brexit policy resigned. She should have gone when she suffered the worst Commons defeat in 750 years of parliamentary history. But, inert and monotonous, she trudges on. Like every Tory canvasser, I could see a disaster coming. But I had no idea it would be this bad. There had been talk of 500 losses, even 800 – though this latter figure was offered more in a spirit of expectation management than of forecasting. In the event, 1300 councillors lost their seats despite, in most cases, having run frugal and efficient local authorities. A couple of days before the vote, in a slightly whimsical spirit, I wrote the following: “I have a horrible vision of the Prime Minister responding to the defeat by making one of those statements at her lectern. ‘I have listened. I have heard what people want. And what people are asking for, up and down the country, is for Parliament to pass my Withdrawal Agreement…’” I intended it as parody, but it is almost exactly what has happened. Responding to an off-the-scale defeat, the PM lumberingly announced that the vote was a mandate “to get on with Brexit.” She is putting together an accord with Labour, and plans to push it past exhausted MPs while she still can. – Daniel Hannan MEP for the Sunday Telegraph (£) Nigel Farage: Jeremy Corbyn has abandoned Labour voters over Brexit On Tuesday, the Labour Party’s ruling body opted to keep its fudged Brexit policy in place. This is an obvious betrayal of the 2016 referendum result, but it only tells half the story. The reality is that Labour’s national executive committee appears to have lost control of the party altogether. The evidence is plain to see. Across the country, Labour has selected Remainers to stand as its top candidates in next month’s European elections. Take the North West region. Labour’s top three candidates there have signed an open letter in which they not only back a second referendum on the UK’s EU membership, but also reaffirm their support for Remain. The same can be said of all four candidates in Wales. At the same time, research suggests that 83 per cent of Labour MPs also want a second referendum. I don’t think the millions of people who voted for Brexit in 2016 – and then voted for Jeremy Corbyn in the 2017 general election – understand how deeply they have been abandoned by their party. Of all the Remainers in the Labour Party (and there are many to choose from), two in particular spring to mind for their sheer dishonesty with the electorate. Labour peer Lord Adonis has previously spoken of his desire to sabotage Brexit. On a separate occasion he even urged Brexiteers not to vote Labour. Yet having been selected as Labour’s MEP candidate in the South West region, he released a statement claiming to respect the referendum result. You simply couldn’t make it up. – Nigel Farage MEP for the Sunday Express Patrick Scott, Sarah Newey and Ashley Kirk: Establishment parties suffered in the local elections – here are the reasons this bodes well for the Brexit Party Both major Westminster parties had a poor 2019 local elections, with the Conservatives recording their worst performance since 1995 and the opposition Labour Party still recording a net seat loss. The Conservatives have lost 1,269 seats, something that Labour failed to capitalise on, despite the main opposition party being generally expected to get a boost in inter-general election years. The Liberal Democrats did take advantage, gaining 676 seats, while hyperlocal parties and independent candidates were arguably the overall winners from the ballot. In many ways this is a strange election. Anger over the Brexit situation reportedly dominated conversations on the doorstep during the campaign but the two new Brexit protest vote parties – Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party and Change UK – didn’t field candidates. This is likely to mean that things could get even worse for the main two parties at the European Parliament elections in three weeks’ time. It is clear that voters are unhappy with the two main parties and that Ukip will not be Leavers’ protest vote of choice. Ukip have lost significant support in the polls since since Mr Farage resigned as leader and has tacked further to the right under Gerard Batten. The party’s infrastructure also seems to have deteriorated with Ukip candidates standing in far fewer seats this year than they did in 2015. This leaves the Brexit Party as the only viable unambiguously pro-Leave party for moderate Brexiteers wishing to vent their fury with the government. – Patrick Scott, Sarah Newey and Ashley Kirk for the Sunday Telegraph (£) Tony Parsons: May and Corbyn’s pathetic deal is a grotesque act of national self-harm, not a compromise Do Theresa May and new best mate Jeremy Corbyn really want to turn this great country into a banana republic with no bananas? Apparently, that is the big idea being cooked up behind closed doors by the odd couple. But taking us out of the EU while keeping us in a customs union — their cunning plan, God help us — would not be a pragmatic compromise to unite our divided country. Keeping us in a customs union would be a grotesque act of national self-harm. Keeping us in a customs union would render the UK a forelock-tugging colony of the EU for ever. Taking us out of the EU while locking us in a customs union with the EU would be the worst of all possible worlds. It would prevent us from striking our own trade deals around the world — the great shining dream of Brexit — while leaving us beholden to the whims, wishes and interests of the EU. We would be instantly diminished. The country that has not been invaded for 1,000 years would be brought to its knees by mediocre politicians. Just to be totally clear — taking us out of the EU while keeping us in a customs union would be stark raving mad. If we remain in a customs union while leaving the EU — a pitiful Brexit in name only, a pathetic excuse for Brexit — then we lose our voice without gaining our freedom. We could have no independent trade policy of our own. – Tony Parsons for The Sun The Sun: Don’t sell us out to Corbyn with a soft Brexit compromise, Mrs May Like a punch-drunk boxer, the Tory Party is reeling from the local election disaster and walking into the potential knockout blow of a deal with Labour. Theresa May is days away from unveiling a soft Brexit compromise, cobbled together in desperation with an equally battered Jeremy Corbyn, which risks infuriating voters even more. It doesn’t matter what they call it, this will be a customs union in all but name. Such an arrangement will block Britain from striking its own lucrative trade deals after quitting the EU, leaving us shackled to Brussels for years. If this climbdown is not enough, weak-willed Mrs May also appears to have bowed to Labour’s wish to keep us tied to EU rules on workers’ rights. The PM seems willing to cave in to all the Labour leader’s demands, just as she did with Brussels Eurocrats. Even if this diluted deal does gain Parliamentary and EU backing, there is barely enough time to prevent the £100million European elections on May 23. So millions of fed-up and furious voters will deliver an even more devastating verdict at the ballot box. After Thursday’s vote it’s clear people don’t want the wool pulled over their eyes on Brexit. They want a clean break. Ignoring them will be politically fatal. – The Sun says Sunday Express: The voters have spoken, now parties must listen The people have spoken. But we have to wonder how many times they need to deliver their message before politicians take notice. Nevertheless the verdict of British voters is clear to both the Conservatives and Labour – they need to keep their promise and get on with delivering Brexit quickly. The British can be patient but the council results across England have emphatically shown that people have had enough. The loss of about 1,200 seats by the Tories is even worse than was expected. But Labour’s losses of about 100 seats when they should have been picking up hundreds instead was equally catastrophic. Voters were obviously punishing the two main parties for failing to deliver Brexit. Do not be fooled by the Lib Dem gains, they have simply taken their traditional role for protest votes – the Brexit Party had no candidates so this was not a sudden conversion to Remain. Things are only going to get worse for the two big parties.The European election will be an even more resounding verdict on their Brexit failure and Nigel Farage’s party will almost certainly be the main winners. – Sunday Express editorial James Forsyth: What a May/Corbyn Brexit deal would look like The local election results showed that both main parties are paying a price for the Brexit impasse. This, as I say in The Sun this morning, means that the cross-party talks have a better chance of succeeding than they did. Those in the talks are more optimistic than they have been about getting some kind of agreement, if not a full-blown deal. But they know that things could change very quickly. I understand that the compromise being drawn up goes as follows. The UK would initially enter into a ‘comprehensive customs arrangement’ with the European Union. This would be very similar to a customs union. But the two parties would then commit, and hope to persuade the EU to do the same, to there being two choices for the future: either an independent trade policy under a scheme similar to the facilitated customs arrangement that May proposed at Chequers or a customs union with a UK say over future trade deals, which is Labour’s policy. The irony of this is that the EU hasn’t said that it will accept either of these options. Getting Brussels to include them in the political declaration will not be easy. – James Forsyth for The Spectator Dan Hodges: Are Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn about to stitch up a Brexit deal which no one voted for? It was Labour MP Barry Gardiner who let the cat out of the bag. ‘You, as a Brexit Minister, should understand,’ he snapped at Tory rival James Cleverly in the middle of the BBC’s local election night coverage. ‘We are in there, trying to bail you guys out.’ That is, of course, not the public line. Jeremy Corbyn is supposed to be fighting with every fibre of his being to bring down the evil Theresa May regime and introduce a ‘jobs first Brexit’. But the reality is rather different. A few months ago, the Labour leader spoke to one of his backbenchers who represents a solid Leave seat. ‘He asked him if he would start to unofficially whip our other Brexit-supporting MPs to back May’s deal,’ a Shadow Minister privy to the approach tells me. ‘Jeremy wanted to move on from Brexit and thought the only way to do that was to get it over the line. But he couldn’t be seen to be helping dig a Tory Prime Minister out of a hole. So he said it all had to be done without it appearing he was behind it.’ The MP patiently explained that without the explicit endorsement of Corbyn and his team, there would be no way the plan could succeed. At which point it was quietly dropped and Britain’s Long Brexit Nightmare began. This morning, Labour and the Tories are again thinking the unthinkable. In the wake of Thursday’s pummelling at the hands of the voters, Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May are seriously contemplating entering into an unholy Brexit alliance. ‘Brexit – sort it. Message received,’ tweeted Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell as the results were still coming in. A Downing Street official concurred: ‘Both sides in the negotiations recognise we need to get this done now.’ For Labour, there is a simple rationale. Shunt Brexit to the margins and return to hammering the Tories on austerity and other ‘bread and butter’ issues. – Dan Hodges for the Mail on Sunday Out, out, out. For the third time running, ConservativeHome survey finds a record proportion of party members wanting May gone now Last month, 71 per cent of our Party member panel respondents wanted Theresa May to announce her resignation as Party leader and thus trigger a leadership election. That was a record low. And this month, the Prime Minister duly hits a record low for the third time running. 82 per cent want her gone and that leadership election now. This is a snap survey in the aftermath of the worst Conservative local election results in over 20 years. So the result is perhaps not surprising, given the atrocious Tory performance last Thursday and the meltdown in member support for May’s Brexit policy. But we hope none the less that Conservative MPs note it and act on it. – Paul Goodman for ConservativeHome Brexit in Brief This growing voters’ revolt just might change the course of British history – Sherelle Jacobs for the Sunday Telegraph (£) The only way to save the Conservative Party: a new leader, Brexit, tax cuts and a war on crime – Sunday Telegraph (£) editorial Former Brexit Secretary David Davis calls for Dominic Raab to replace Theresa May as Tory Prime Minister – iNews Former Tory Chairman Eric Pickles backs a second referendum – iNews