Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Theresa May says no deal ‘more likely’ after Tory truce is shattered by Commons defeat… Theresa May has said a no-deal Brexit is “more likely” after Tory Eurosceptics condemned her to another humiliating Commons defeat. The brief Tory truce over Brexit was shattered as 66 Conservatives – including Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab – abstained in a vote over the Government’s way forward, which Mrs May lost by 303 votes to 258. The result was a serious blow to Mrs May’s chances of winning concessions from Brussels over the Brexit deal. Mrs May had told the EU that a vote in favour of her Brexit strategy last month gave her a “stable majority” for the deal she is trying to broker, but that majority was wiped out at a stroke by her 45-vote defeat. Brexiteers from the European Research Group had refused to back a Government motion which followed a day-long Brexit debate because they believed it meant no deal was being taken off the table. The ERG claimed the result proved that the only way Mrs May can get a deal through Parliament is if she persuades the EU to drop the Northern Ireland backstop completely and replace it with “alternative arrangements”. But Mrs May, who was absent from the Commons chamber when the result was announced, insisted that the net result was to make no deal more likely. – Telegraph (£) Theresa May defeated as Tories refuse to back her plan – The Times (£) > On BrexitCentral: 66 Tories abstain as MPs defeat Government on Brexit strategy motion – how they all voted Highlights from the EU Withdrawal Motion Debate > WATCH: Steve Baker MP on BBC News …as it is reported that May will now retreat on her backstop demands Britain will soften its demand that the EU reopen the Brexit withdrawal agreement to solve the Irish backstop issue, The Times has learnt. The Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay suggested to the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier during talks this week that the government could accept legal guarantees that fell short of renegotiating the draft withdrawal treaty. The revelation will enrage Brexiteers, who inflicted another defeat on Theresa May last night before she has further talks in Brussels next week. – The Times (£) U.K. set to tell EU it doesn’t want to renegotiate Brexit deal – Bloomberg Pro-EU MPs vow to take control of the Government and delay Brexit in fresh assault on May’s plan… Remainer MPs today vowed to seize control of the Government and wreck Theresa May’s Brexit plans. A group of senior backbenchers pledged to act like an alternative Cabinet in order to stop Britain leaving the EU without a deal. Top Tory Oliver Letwin claimed the move was necessary to avoid the “terrifying” prospect of a No Deal outcome. But their threat to delay Brexit will anger Leave-supporting MPs who want to see Brexit happen on March 29 as scheduled. Speaking in the Commons today, Sir Oliver laid out a plan to take No Deal off the table by extending the Article 50 process. He said the rebel group would push their proposal through in two weeks if Mrs May doesn’t strike a deal by then. Sir Oliver admitted the proposal – where the Commons rather than the Government would be dictating the path of Brexit – would be unprecedented. – The Sun …while May loyalists react angrily to last night’s defeat… Theresa May is set to face intense pressure from remain-minded Conservative MPs to finally face down hardline Brexiters in her party after a planned restatement of a departure strategy agreed two weeks ago by the Commons was defeated. Abstentions by MPs from the pro-Brexit European Research Group (ERG) played a big part in seeing the government motion voted down after the Brexit secretary, Stephen Barclay, was unable to persuade them it did not take a no-deal departure off the table. While May loyalists scrambled to play down the importance of the vote, privately MPs and even some ministers were furious at the ERG and insistent the prime minister had to change course in the coming days. “There is a degree of wishful thinking going on that the EU can ever do enough to satisfy the Brexit extremists,” one minister said. “She wants to try to square the circle and it’s just not looking likely. She has a choice: seek the agreement across the House or the country will be out without a deal. They don’t compromise, they never have.” – Guardian …and Business minister Richard Harrington tells Brexiteer Tory MPs to join Nigel Farage’s new party A government minister has accused Tory Brexiteers of “treachery” and called on them to join Nigel Farage’s new anti-EU party. Richard Harrington said members of the hardline European Research Group who celebrated defeating Theresa May’s Brexit deal last month were “not Conservatives” and should quit. The business minister also said he was “very disappointed” that the Prime Minister was still refusing to rule out the possibility of a no-deal Brexit. And he dismissed the so-called “Malthouse Compromise”, which Mrs May is considering as a potential way of breaking the Brexit deadlock, as “fanciful nonsense”. – PoliticsHome Brexit deal deadline for businesses is just days away, Greg Clark warns In a thinly-veiled dig at Brexiteers who argue that the EU will offer Britain a string of late-in-the-day concessions, the Business Secretary said the “last minute” deadline to strike a deal to protect UK exporters was “fast approaching over the next few days and weeks”. The UK is currently due to leave the European Union with or without a deal on March 29, and Theresa May is heading back to Brussels this week to press for a string of changes to the agreement she hammered out with the EU. But Mr Clark told MPs on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee that some firms reliant on exports would need to know the terms of Britain’s withdrawal well ahead of that March 29 deadline. He said: “Will they have to pay tariffs? Will they be subject to rules of origin checks that will no longer be met? It is one of the reasons why I’ve been very outspoken in saying that we should not regard the 29th of March or the 28th of March as the time that we should be prepared to take to conclude a deal. People often say these things are done at the last minute – the last minute for important exporters is fast approaching over the next few days and weeks.” – PoliticsHome Priti Patel says May needs to tell Brussels to ‘sod off’ to get a better Brexit deal Theresa May should have told Brussels to “sod off” and threaten to walk away to get a better deal on Brexit, a former Cabinet minister has said. Priti Patel, who quit as International Development Secretary in November 2017, said she wanted to see a more “muscular” approach to the talks. The Conservative MP told Chopper’s Brexit Podcast, which you can listen to easily by logging in or subscribing below: “We have had tetchy moments. We should have actually said ‘enough is enough’ we are not going to take this over the transition, money… We should have told them to sod off. We are not going to be bullied by the EU. Our country looks very weak right now. I feel a sense of national humiliation: why have we succumbed to giving, giving, giving.” Ms Patel also said the Prime Minister must publish any legal advice which underlies the UK’s Withdrawal deal when it comes back to Parliament. “Trust is a really big issue right now,” she said. Mrs May said earlier this week in an answer to Tory MP Anne Main that she recognised MPs’ concerns regarding the legally binding nature of any changes that are achieved. – Telegraph (£) Jeremy Corbyn to hold Brexit talks with Barnier and Verhofstadt next week Jeremy Corbyn will hold talks in Brussels next week with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, as he seeks to break the Brexit impasse and persuade Theresa May to sign up to a customs union. The visit is likely to be highly unwelcome in Downing Street, and risks accusations that Labour is pursuing its own shadow negotiations, undermining the prime minister’s hopes of fresh EU concessions. May will be in Brussels in the same week to meet the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker. The UK attorney-general, Geoffrey Cox, is expected to travel with her. During a whistle-stop tour of the central figures in the Brexit talks on Thursday, Corbyn is also due to meet the European parliament’s Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt. He will also hold talks with senior figures in the socialist group in the European parliament, including Labour MEPs. EU sources said Corbyn was expected to provide further details on his recent conditional offer of support for the prime minister’s deal along with an update on the cross-party talks. – Guardian Jeremy Corbyn to visit Brussels for talks with EU negotiators – Independent A clutch of Labour Remainers on the verge of quitting the party after ‘being played for fools by leadership’… Labour is braced for a walkout of eight Remainer MPs as early as Monday after the party was plunged into fresh conflict over Brexit. Rebels are gearing up to form a breakaway group as tensions flare over Jeremy Corbyn’s approach to Britain’s departure from the EU. It comes as up to ten shadow ministers are reportedly planning to resign from the frontbench if the Labour leader refuses to back a second referendum. Party splits boiled over in a heated outburst in the Commons from Chris Leslie, one of the backbenchers believed to be involved in planning a new party. In a public attack on Mr Corbyn, he claimed “we are being played for fools by the leadership of the Labour Party” and told MPs the divisions over Brexit were “heartbreaking.” Mr Leslie criticised the wording of his party leadership’s proposals to change Theresa May’s next steps Brexit plan because it did not include the option of another Brexit referendum. – Express …while one Labour MP claims Brexit will lead to war in Europe… A Shadow Minister yesterday claimed Brexit will lead to a war in Europe – as he panned Labour for enabling a “Tory Brexit”. Clive Lewis told a “Love Socialism, Hate Brexit” event in Westminster that today’s children “could be back in Europe in a few years’ time, but in uniform”. In a further sign of discipline breaking down in the party, the shadow Treasury minister warned that Labour faced being “utterly and comprehensively destroyed” at the next General Election if it allowed Theresa May’s Brexit deal to pass. And in a thinly-veiled attack on Jeremy Corbyn, Mr Lewis added: “We are now sending some mixed messages out there and that is truly dangerous.” He told the event: “My fear is this, if we walk away from Europe now my children, your children, or possibly our grandchildren, but probably our children could be back in Europe in a few years time – but in uniform. And I don’t want to see that happen.” It separately emerged that a handful of Labour’s pro-EU rebels could quit the party in two weeks’ time. Led by senior figures such as Chris Leslie, they are planning to give Mr Corbyn an ultimatum to back a second referendum by the end of the month – or they will quit the party. In the latest show of bitter fighting in Labour yesterday, Mr Leslie accused Mr Corbyn of “playing us for fools” by refusing to back a second Brexit vote. – The Sun …and Caroline Flint says MPs’ attempts to block No Deal are a ‘Trojan Horse’ to stop Brexit A cross-party attempt to take control of Brexit and rule out no deal is a “Trojan horse” for stopping Britain’s exit from the EU, a senior Labour MP has said. Caroline Flint said the Yvette Cooper-led move could open the door to “game playing” by politicians who want to overturn the 2016 referendum result, and criticised the Labour leadership’s “high handed” decision to back it in the February 27 ‘high noon’ Brexit votes without consulting MPs. Appearing on HuffPost UK’s Commons People podcast, Flint said the so-called “Cooper 2” amendment was “even worse” than her party colleague’s first attempt, which was rejected by a majority of 23 last month after a Labour rebellion led by the Don Valley MP. Flint, who backed Remain but has been holding talks with government ministers about supporting the Brexit deal, also urged Jeremy Corbyn to give Labour a free vote on EU withdrawal to keep hold of MPs who are “hellbent” on leaving the party. – Huffington Post Mark Harper: To fix the backstop, Theresa May should push on with the Malthouse Compromise As we arrive at what was meant to be another ‘crunch’ day of voting in the House of Commons, one constant throughout this process is the notion that the Cabinet’s Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration is a ‘deal’. With apologies to Noel Edmonds, this is why many think we are fast approaching the point of ‘deal’ or ‘no deal’. In all this debate, there has not been much, if any, focus on the fact that it isn’t really a deal at all. What do I mean? There are two things that have been negotiated: a Withdrawal Agreement dealing with money, citizens’ rights as well as a transition period along with a second part, the Political Declaration, which is what our future relationship is going to be – covering trade and our economic relationship as well as our security arrangements. This second part is what most people mean by a ‘deal’. The problem with the Political Declaration is that the key economic decision, which is how close we remain tied to the EU, has still not been taken. – Mark Harper for the Telegraph (£) Asa Bennett: Tory Brexiteers have given Brussels the perfect excuse not to give ground on the backstop Parliament might have humiliated Theresa May last month by rejecting her deal, but at least she could try and tell Brussels that it had been clear on what it wanted to change in order for it to be accepted. The House of Commons indicated last month by backing the Brady amendment that it would approve a Brexit deal if Mrs May secured “alternative arrangements” to the backstop, and – by backing Caroline Spelman’s amendment – that it really did not want no deal to happen. That gave the Prime Minister three words to hammer home in Brussels in response to underline the importance of her demands for compromise on the backstop: Parliament. Has. Spoken. Mrs May needed Parliament to be clear as possible on that in order to convince European leaders that compromising on the backstop would clear a way for the deal. Michel Barnier remarked last month that he had “the impression that the backstop is not the central issue”. He will undoubtedly feel that his first impression was correct now that MPs have voted down Government motion suggesting that Parliament still agreed with what it wanted last month. – Asa Bennett for the Telegraph (£) Paul Goodman: May’s new Brexit hell. An alliance of hard and soft Brexiteers humiliates her. And any sense of Government progress is lost. Had Anna Soubry insisted on putting her amendment to the vote – and the Speaker would surely have selected it for that purpose – Theresa May would on balance have been helped rather than harmed. This is because although the Government would have been subject to the embarrassment of releasing papers relating to No Deal (or risk being found in contempt of Parliament), it would not endured the greater indignity of losing its own main motion. For if Soubry’s amendment had been passed, the Prime Minister’s motion would then not have been put to the Commons at all. So it would not have been subject to defeat by 303 votes to 258. The motion was defeated precisely because some Remainers and Soft Brexiteers, such as Phillip Lee, and the bulk of the European Reseach Group – Bernard Jenkin and others – joined together to abstain. – Paul Goodman for ConservativeHome Matthew Lesh: A ‘Manchester Round’ of global talks would show Britain is still the home of free trade The best route to prosperity for post-Brexit Britain is to use leaving the EU as a chance to become a world leader on trade. To that end, it would be a powerful and symbolic step to host a “Manchester Round” of multilateral free trade negotiations, kickstarting the latest round of talks that stalled in 2015 and emulating the spirit of the great 19th century northern industrial free traders. Sadly, however, in recent weeks the a cabal of self-serving lobbyists has slithered to the fore to oppose free trade – and the cheap food and goods it would deliver for British consumers. Trade minister Liam Fox is reportedly inclined to slash tariffs in the case of a no-deal Brexit. The manufacturing union GWB claimed this would be “industrial sabotage”. National Farmers’ Union chief Minette Batters warned that the government must keep out “cheap food”. – Matthew Lesh for the Telegraph (£) Christian May: The EU simply chooses which rules to enforce and which to ignore Allow me a moment away from our own Brexit turmoil and to focus instead on a nasty spot of rot right at the heart of the European Commission. While the Brexit process has made some of the EU’s top brass more recognisable to a British audience, it’s unlikely that many could identify one of its most powerful and notorious ruling figures: Martin Selmayr. Selmayr is now secretary-general of the European Commission, the most senior civil servant of the entire EU apparatus. But the circumstances surrounding his appointment are mired in deep controversy. So much so, that the EU’s own watchdog, the European Ombudsman, has investigated the process and found that Selmayr’s promotion from Jean-Claude Juncker’s chief of staff to the new top role “did not follow the EU law, in letter and spirit, and did not follow the Commission’s own rules.” – Christian May for City A.M. Telegraph: What is Britain’s current Brexit negotiating position? Brussels must be scratching its head: what exactly is Britain’s position on Brexit? Last night, MPs appeared to vote down the very negotiating position they had endorsed two weeks before, and suddenly Theresa May’s claim that “Parliament has spoken” looks weak. Brexiteers rejected this motion because they suspected it could take a no-deal outcome off the table, despite Number 10’s insistence to the contrary. That’s the price Number 10 pays for two years of playing its cards close to its chest, ignoring ministers, crossing red lines and generally being “nebulous”. Those who really want Brexit no longer take the Government’s word on trust. Mrs May could say to the Europeans: “This is proof that we must reform the backstop if we are to strike a deal.” That might lead to the insertion of a new time limit or a unilateral withdrawal mechanism. But it is more likely that she will conclude “nothing has changed” and press on with Plan A. The Prime Minister isn’t running down the clock, she is strolling on calmly, reportedly in the hope that Brussels will surrender at the last minute and hand her some rhetorical formula that satisfies Leavers and squeezes a largely unchanged Withdrawal Agreement through Parliament. – Telegraph (£) Frederick Wild: Let’s call an end to EU protectionism In John Gast’s American Progress, Manifest Destiny guides homesteaders towards their western future on the newly-built railroads. These railroads created the sprawling empires and vast wealth of businessmen like Vanderbilt and Gould’s. But none of this would have led America to economic success had the administrations of Cleveland and Harrison not broken their monopolies and opened rail transportation to the masses. In the case of the thwarted Siemens-Alstom merger, which would have created another behemoth of the railways, things are less clear-cut. Last week, the EU’s Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, blocked the deal, believing it would threaten healthy competition. This is the latest example of a long tradition of EU’s competition watchdog’s advocacy for free and fair competition across Europe. – Frederick Wild for European Foundation Brexit in Brief Brexit vote defeat worsens Theresa May’s hand in EU negotiations – Kate McCann for Sky News MPs defeat government again and leave May and the EU in a jam – Iain Martin for Reaction The EU and UK are one sentence away from a Brexit deal. Why the games? – The Spectator People’s Vote poster boy who ‘switched’ from Leave was always a Remainer – Express Dutch government makes blue furry monster its new Brexit mascot – Independent Anna Soubry bemoans ‘purple momentum’ of Brexiteer Tory members threatening deselection – Express And finally… ‘Labour is red, Tories are blue’ MPs read Brexit poems on Valentine’s Day MPs mark Valentine’s Day by reading poems in parliament about leaving the EU. The leader of the house, Andrea Leadsom, and the SNP’s Pete Wishart both elicited groans with their offerings – Guardian