Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Defence Secretary’s parliamentary aide Will Quince resigns over the Brexit deal… Will Quince, Tory MP for Colchester, has quit as ministerial aide to Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, a Government source revealed tonight. The politician told The Sunday Telegraph: “I wanted to support this Withdrawal Agreement, and I still want to support it, but unless the backstop is addressed to include either an end date or a unilateral exit mechanism, I cannot support it and so am resigning from the Government as a Parliamentary Private Secretary. “I implore the Prime Minister to go back to the European Union and find another way, to make this Withdrawal Agreement something we can all support.” – Sunday Mirror …as Theresa May loses grip of a party rocked by Brexit resignations… Two members of the Government are resigning and a Cabinet minister is mulling whether to quit over Brexit this weekend as Theresa May’s administration appears to be disintegrating ahead of the most important vote of a generation. Government whips have given Conservative MPs until lunchtime on Sunday to set out how they will vote on Mrs May’s Brexit deal, in a desperate bid to judge the scale of a rebellion that threatens to bring down her government… A second Parliamentary Private Secretary, who The Telegraph has been asked not to name at this stage, has also told whips that they will quit on Monday, while a number of senior party figures were “wrestling with decisions to resign”. More resignations are possible from the Cabinet, with leading Brexiteer Penny Mordaunt said to be deciding over the next 48 hours whether to back the deal or quit in what one minister described as “the week of unknowns”. – Sunday Telegraph (£) …amidst claims she could postpone the vote to go and ‘handbag’ Brussels in a frantic bid to save her deal Theresa May will seek to emulate Margaret Thatcher by travelling to Brussels to demand a better Brexit deal in a last-ditch attempt to save her government from collapse. Ministers and aides have convinced the prime minister that she needs “a handbag moment” with EU bosses if she is to have any chance of persuading her own MPs to support her. They expect May to announce tomorrow that she will launch a final throw of the diplomatic dice with a dash to Brussels, a move that could result in Tuesday’s vote being postponed. Senior ministers bombarded the prime minister with warnings yesterday that she has to look like she is fighting for a deal that Brexiteers can support — or face a catastrophic defeat that could lead to Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister by Christmas. One senior cabinet minister said: “People in No 10 think she needs to have a ‘handbag moment’ where she says: ‘Up with this I will not put.’” But The Sunday Times can reveal that even as she makes a final appeal to the EU, some of her most trusted ministers are already planning for a new referendum. – Sunday Times (£) Theresa May set to delay Tuesday’s Brexit deal vote and demand better terms from EU – Sunday Express ‘Back me or get Jeremy Corbyn and no Brexit’, May warns her MPs Theresa May today warns her warring party that if they vote down her Brexit deal they risk handing the country to Jeremy Corbyn – and being stuck permanently in the EU. With the number of Tory MPs opposed to Mrs May’s Brexit deal now estimated to have reached triple figures, the Prime Minister tries to quell the rebellion by weaponising the threat of Mr Corbyn and his predominantly pro-EU party. ‘I’m not somebody who is normally a doom- monger [but] I genuinely am concerned that we would see greater division and greater uncertainty,’ said Mrs May. ‘The Labour Party see this as a way of trying to engineer a General Election. They are not looking at the national interest. ‘They are playing party politics for their own short-term political gain and frankly that would lead to long-term national pain.’ She tells her rebellious MPs: ‘If you want Brexit, make sure you get it, and that’s about this deal. – Mail on Sunday May’s deal lacks clarity or certainty, concludes Brexit Select Committee The Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration fail to offer enough clarity or certainty about the future, according to the House of Commons Committee on Exiting the European Union. “The Prime Minister’s deal fails to offer sufficient clarity or certainty about the future.” The Political Declaration, which outlines aspirations for future relations between the UK and EU, is “neither detailed nor substantive”, meaning “significant uncertainty” remains about the terms of trade after a transition period, the study says. “What is clear from the Political Declaration is that the extent of our access to EU markets will depend on the degree to which we adhere to its rules,” the report states. The MPs said that UK government failure to set out objectives which are “realistic, workable, and have parliamentary support” mean that negotiations with the EU on the future relationship will be “further complicated, and could take significantly longer” than otherwise. – RTE Fresh blow for Theresa May as official report from cross-party MPs slams deal – Evening Standard Expert reveals simple tweaks to backstop could please Brexiteer rebels Brussels expert, Pieter Cleppe, of think tank Open Europe, believes the Government can request small minor changes that will satisfy the concerns of Brexiteers. He said: “Perhaps a compromise could be to outsource the decision on whether the UK complies with the conditions to leave backstop status, in the absence of a trade deal with the EU, to an internationally respected private arbitration court. “Another solution could be write in the deal that the backstop only applies ‘as long as’ the EU was working ‘to negotiate and conclude’ a permanent agreement with the UK. “This may alleviate UK concerns that the EU would use its veto over ending backstop status as leverage during trade talks. In reality, a proper EU veto over this would not be properly enforceable anyway, as we are talking about international law, so the EU and Ireland should simply recognise reality here.” “France and the rest of the EU26 should relax a little. Northern Ireland would continue to align with EU regulations, as foreseen under the backstop, so no product violating EU safety standards would enter the EU customs union.” – Sunday Express EU will negotiate if May loses Commons Brexit vote, says Prodi The EU will come back to the negotiating table if parliament votes down Theresa May’s deal with Brussels, according to Romano Prodi, a former European commission president. Prodi, who twice served as Italian prime minister and had Jean-Claude Juncker’s job until 2004, said that the EU needed to do everything it could to avoid the “economic catastrophe” of a no-deal Brexit. But in an interview with the Observer, Prodi suggested it would still be possible to find a negotiated settlement in the increasingly likely event May suffers a heavy defeat in the Commons. Asked how he expected the commission to respond after the vote, Prodi said: “Negotiate. We must keep free trade between us because it is in the British interests and European interest. The UK has no alternative – the EU is a large part of its trade. Always the problem of Northern Ireland, but it is possible. Common sense helps.” – Observer Cabinet splits over idea of a second referendum on the Brexit deal A deep cabinet split has opened up over whether Theresa May should back a second referendum in a final attempt to end the political deadlock over Brexit, as senior Conservatives predicted on Saturday night that her blueprint for leaving the EU was heading for a crushing House of Commons defeat. Adding to a mounting sense of constitutional crisis ahead of Tuesday’s crucial parliamentary vote, No 10 is braced for more resignations of ministers and aides who want another referendum, or who believe May’s deal fails to deliver on Brexit. Will Quince, the Colchester MP and aide to the defence secretary Gavin Williamson, quit his post on Saturday night in protest at the Brexit deal. Cabinet ministers have told the Observer that attempts to convince May to delay the vote to avoid one of the largest and most humiliating defeats in recent parliamentary history had not been heeded. This was despite what they saw as a clear danger that such a result could provoke a leadership challenge and split the party irrevocably. – Observer Nigel Farage unveils plan to form new party to fight ‘biggest battle yet’ for independence from EU Nigel Farage has said it is his “destiny” to fight for Brexit as he unveils his plans to launch a new political party to fight next year’s European Parliament elections if the Government delays Britain’s exit from the European Union. The former leader of the UK Independence Party told The Sunday Telegraph that he believed he had “not fought my biggest battle yet” and would relish the battle at May’s Euro elections, which he expects to be held if Brexit is delayed. Talks have been going on for a number of months about his new party but have been stepped in the past fortnight as the full detail of Theresa May’s Brexit deal has emerged. Mr Farage, 54, said he had held talks with a number of high profile business people to stand for his new party. Its new name was “to be confirmed”, he said. Mr Farage, who quit as a member of Ukip last week sparking a number of other resignations by senior figures, said: “I sense within me I have not fought my biggest battle yet – that is how it feels. Whether it is happenstance, serendipity, destiny. “I am not going to lie down and watch it go down the plug hole. I couldn’t do that. And I won’t do that. If there are European Parliament elections I am standing and I am thinking about vehicles do to that. – Sunday Telegraph (£) Nigel Farage has discussed setting up a new pro-Brexit political party – Buzzfeed News Britain’s youth will never forgive us for Brexit, claims Lord Heseltine Former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine will warn politicians that Britain’s youth will “never forgive us” unless they are offered the chance to reverse Brexit. The Conservative veteran, 85, will address a rally calling for a second referendum ahead of Tuesday’s crunch Commons vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal. He will claim that the government appears to have “lost control” and there were signs that MPs were prepared to take action to “assert the authority” of parliament. Highlighting a generational split in the result of the 2016 referendum, he will say “those of a certain age who voted 70:30 to leave” are “rapidly being replaced by a younger generation who voted 70:30 to stay”. Heseltine will hit out at Brexiters who have called pro-EU politicians “traitors”, saying: “May our opponents never be forgiven for their allegations that it is us who are letting Britain down.” – Observer Sinn Fein leader reaffirms its MPs will not take their seats to oppose Brexit Mary Lou McDonald has used a speech at the centenary celebration for the first female MP to reaffirm her party’s stance on abstentionism. The Sinn Fein leader spoke on Saturday at an event dedicated to Constance Markievicz, who was elected to the House of Commons as an abstentionist Sinn Fein MP in 1918. The party have come under renewed calls to revise their policy and take their seven seats in Westminster. As the vote on the draft Brexit agreement nears, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar called on Ms McDonald’s party to give up the seats to representatives who would take them, enabling them to vote in the critical ballot next week. Sinn Fein have remained steadfast in their policy that they will not take their seats in the House of Commons or pledge allegiance to the Queen, a point reiterated by Ms McDonald on Saturday, before taking aim at her political rivals. “These revisionists celebrate the election of Markievicz as the first woman elected to Westminster, as they should,” Ms McDonald said. – Belfast Telegraph Will Quince: I am resigning from the Government because May’s Brexit deal means obeying EU rules for years to come I do not want to be explaining to my constituents why Brexit is still not over and we are still obeying EU rules in the early 2020s or beyond. Unless and until this is amended, the Withdrawal Agreement cannot receive my support. How can we realistically expect to secure a good deal under such circumstances, with such a power imbalance. I believe the Prime Minister when she says there should be enough common purpose to secure a deal in a timely fashion. This is possible, but it remains an opinion. Opinions change quicker than laws do. I am being asked to approve a legally binding treaty which creates such a power imbalance that it irrevocably weakens the UK’s negotiating position, and that is something I cannot do. I implore the Prime Minister to go back to the European Union and find another way, to make this Withdrawal Agreement something we can all support. As I said, I did not come into politics to talk about Brexit. I certainly didn’t think I would have to resign from the Government because of it. – Will Quince MP for the Sunday Telegraph (£) Boris Johnson: MPs must vote down Theresa May’s Brexit vision – and prepare for a No Deal Brexit When I talk to my friends and colleagues about why they might vote for this humiliating deal with the EU, they offer a groan of despair. There is only one reason, they say. They know that we would be handing over a colossal £39billion for nothing in return. They know that we would be locked in the worst of all worlds – unable to do proper free trade deals, and unable to control our own trade policy. They know we would become a vassal state of the EU. Everyone can see the hideous choice that this deal imposes on this country: to accept law from Brussels, over a huge range of policy – and yet with no say over those laws – or else to accept the break up of the UK and the sundering of Northern Ireland from Great Britain. This is a great country, capable of rising to immense challenges – and I believe the people of this country are fed up to the back teeth of being told by their government that they are simply incapable of managing the logistical problems of Brexit, when for two and a half years this government has studiously and deliberately failed to address those logistical problems. We can still get a great deal, and I am sure we will. But the best way to get a great deal is to prepare for no deal. – Boris Johnson MP for The Sun David Davis: We must defeat Theresa May’s wretched Brexit deal and go out into the world with hope and imagination This week’s meaningful vote on the Prime Minister’s Withdrawal Agreement marks a watershed moment in British politics. Parliament will decide on the UK’s future relationship with the European Union for a generation to come. That’s not hype. This is the decisive moment. We are being asked to shackle ourselves to a deal which hands over £39 Billion without anything guaranteed in return, which allows the European Court of Justice to continue to interfere in British law and our daily lives, and which breaks the Conservative manifesto promise to leave the customs union. As Margaret Thatcher once said “No, No, No.” There is an alternative. We can stop grappling and start grasping the global opportunities available to the UK. The real Brexit prize is the opportunity to go out into the world and agree free trade deals with old friends and new allies. We need to offer hope, vision, imagination. A new strategy. Next Tuesday is make or break. We must turn our backs on the past, defeat this wretched deal and get on with the future. – David Davis MP for the Sunday Telegraph (£) Daniel Hannan: If Tory MPs keep Theresa May after this, they will damn themselves The EU is mobilising all its institutions to overturn Brexit, offering deliberately harsh and vindictive terms while reminding us that we can always drop the whole business. Such an approach has worked with other countries. But is that really the sort of people we are? the Tories need a new leader – one who is tenacious (to use the word favoured by Mrs May’s fans) in defence of our sovereignty rather than of continuing in office. The DUP are gradually withdrawing their confidence, not just from the Agreement, but from its author, which means that the Tories may soon have to choose between a leadership election and a general election. Remember Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner? The crew approve when one of their shipmates shoots an albatross, thus making themselves accomplices and condemning themselves to a dreadful fate. I’m afraid there comes a point when refusing to act is itself a choice. Conservative MPs have reached that point now. – Daniel Hannan MEP for the Sunday Telegraph (£) Matthew Elliott: Maggie Thatcher versus the miners can inspire Britain’s last-minute no deal planning Is Theresa May the most disastrous prime minister in British history? Even from living memory there are strong contenders.There is no doubt about it: in her conduct of the Brexit negotiations, and this week’s threatened disaster of a vote (for her), Theresa May rivals the all-time greats of incompetence. She may also be hurtling towards one of the most mortifying political demises in British history. Mrs May would only further damage herself, her office, and the profession of politics if, should she lose this historic vote on Tuesday, she chose to carry on. She is not indispensable. It may take her party some weeks to replace her, but that process can be telescoped: what takes time is the printing and distribution of ballot-papers. But in resigning she could advise the Queen to send for someone to carry on her Government until her party settles its future – someone with the sense to kill this ridiculous “deal”, and to soothe the DUP in case Mr Corbyn tries a vote of confidence. Some colleagues of David Lidington, the de facto deputy prime minister (a position unknown to the British constitution), expect him to be summoned to the Palace to steady the ship, in those circumstances. – Matthew Elliott for the Sunday Telegraph (£) ITV News: What is the Norway-plus Brexit option MPs are talking about? Amber Rudd’s suggestion that Norway-plus could be an alternative if Theresa May’s Brexit deal is rejected has added momentum to the campaign. But what is Norway-plus, would MPs back it and would it truly deliver on the promises made in the Brexit referendum? The idea is based on Norway’s relationship with the European Union as a member of the European Free Trade Association (Efta) and European Economic Area (EEA). Being in the EEA after Brexit would keep the UK in the single market, meaning goods, services and people could continue to move within the bloc in the same way as before, therefore limiting the potential disruption to the economy. On top of that, the “plus” bit of Norway-plus would involve a customs union with the EU, which, combined with the single market elements, would avoid a hard border with Ireland. – ITV News James Forsyth: Will the government find a way to avoid Tuesday’s vote? Number 10 say that no decision on whether to find a way to avoid the vote has been taken yet; senior figures there say that decision will not be taken until Monday. But they do admit that they are making little headway in trying to quell this rebellion. One Cabinet Minister tells me that they are heading for a three-figure defeat. What Theresa May thinks the way ahead is remains unclear even to her inner Cabinet, much to their frustration. ‘The main problem is that it is very difficult to read the PM’, one tells me. Tory MPs are also becoming increasingly irritated with May. One senior backbencher who is normally sympathetic to her, complains that she has become ‘completely messianic about the backstop’. This source says that Tory MPs ‘want to hear a solution rather than this is the only choice and they’re stupid’. If May does go ahead with this vote on Tuesday, she’ll be betting her premiership on keeping the margin of defeat respectable. It would be a mighty gamble. – James Forsyth for The Spectator Ashoka Mody: Ignore the Brexit scare stories – they have no basis in sound economics The Bank of England’s prediction that civilisation will end with Brexit is merely an effort to outdo in shrillness similar analyses by the Treasury and the IMF. All official agencies, trapped in an echo chamber, are competing to paint the grimmest picture of economic consequences of a British exit from the European Union. They are straining so hard because their projected costs of exit have no basis in economic theory or empirical findings. “I don’t understand how you can get that kind of cost without making some big ad hoc assumptions,” tweeted Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. When he uses the expression “big ad hoc assumptions”, he is saying the Bank is making up the numbers. – Ashoka Mody for the Independent Janet Daley: The vile snobs who wrecked Brexit will answer to an insulted people Even I who, as a besotted emigrant to this land have almost unlimited faith in the character of its population, was taken aback by this utter refusal to be bullied or deceived. I have written of this before but now that we are reaching the endgame, it is worth repeating: the British will not be intimidated. How could the country’s elites have got it so wrong? How could they have so disastrously misunderstood the nature of their own electorate and fallen so stupidly into the “them-and-us” model which is embedded in the consciousness of almost all ordinary British people? From the early days of Project Fear to its final spluttering stage last week in which a six-week delay at our ports had suddenly transmogrified into a six-month one, the whole thing has been so crassly idiotic. So purblind and arrogant in fact that it even got some of the most basic premises wrong. There was that endlessly chanted refrain (repeated by Philip Hammond in the Commons debate just last Thursday) that Leave voters, in their benighted naivety, did not realise the economic consequences that Brexit would bring: nobody, it was said, had voted “to become poorer.” Really? But if those voters had believed half, or even a tenth, of what they were told by the Government’s Project Fear prognostications, then that is exactly what they were voting for – or, at the very least, it was what they were prepared to risk. – Janet Daley for the Sunday Telegraph (£) Katy Balls: More resignation trouble on the horizon for May as vote approaches With three days to go until the vote on Theresa May’s deal, this had been the point in the process that No 10 hoped the Whips would be closing in on the swing rebels. Instead the number of rebels is growing with every day. Quince is not the only resignation to expect in the coming days. A number of PPSs are considering resigning on Monday ahead of the vote. Some are Brexiteers – but others are just MPs fed up and worried about constituents. Even the PPSs who are loyal and want to stay in post see their main concern right now as working out a way to explain in their Commons speech why they are backing a bad deal. Meanwhile some ministers are considering just walking into the wrong lobby on Tuesday and seeing what discipline is placed on them. May is facing defeat on Tuesday and before she even gets there she is on course to lose more members of her government. – Katy Balls for The Spectator Ross Clark: The ‘People’s Vote’ campaign’s latest struggle with the truth Given how Remainers have lost no opportunity to accuse the official Leave campaign of telling porkies about how much money we send to the EU – £350 million per week according to Vote Leave but closer to a net £250 million once the UK rebate is taken into account – one might imagine that the ‘People’s Vote’ campaign would take extra special care over statements relating to financial contributions to the EU. But it seems not. It has been caught out doctoring a report written by an outside expert, leading to inaccurate claims about how EFTA members’ contributions to the EU are spent. People’s Vote has always suffered from a slight problem with its name, which implies somehow that it wasn’t human beings who voted in the 2016 referendum – maybe they think it was cloven-hoofed beasts or potted plants who condemned us to Brexit. Its latest struggle with truth is not going to help it in its campaign to try to reverse the result of that referendum. – Ross Clark for The Spectator Brexit in Brief Will we get a second EU referendum, how would another Brexit vote work and what is Labour’s position? – Phoebe Cooke, Neal Baker, Jon Rogers and Tariq Tahir for The Sun Boris Johnson and Amber Rudd could steer us away from the rocks – Jacob Rees-Mogg for the Mail on Sunday Here at Transport, we’re getting ready for Brexit – whatever happens. But here’s why I’m backing the Prime Minister’s deal – Chris Grayling MP for ConservativeHome EDL founder to lead UKIP-organised pro-Brexit march today – BBC News Majority of country now think Britain should remain in the EU, new poll suggests – Independent