Brexit vote news: Theresa May confirms plans to delay Commons vote on deal blaming division over Irish backstop

Theresa May has confirmed plans to delay the Commons vote on her Brexit deal blaming division over the Irish backstop.

The Prime Minister has humiliatingly called off Tuesday's Brexit vote to avoid defeat on an unprecedented scale that could prove fatal to her premiership.

Speculation had mounted on Monday that the vote on the Withdrawal Agreement would be postponed or scrapped in the face of an open revolt by Conservative MPs and fierce opposition from other sides of the House.

Mrs May confirmed the move in a statement to the Commons after a day of disarray and conflicting signals over whether the vote would be delayed. She said she would be going back to the EU to seek reassurances over the Northern Ireland backstop.

European Council President Donald Tusk later said he has called a meeting of the council to discuss Brexit on Thursday and that the EU "will not renegotiate the deal including the backstop but is ready to discuss how to facilitate UK ratification".

Jeremy Corbyn said that if Mrs May "cannot be clear that she can and will renegotiate a deal then she must make way." He said: "The Government has lost control of events and is in complete disarray." Labour later said it would table a motion of no confidence in the Government "when we judge it most likely to be successful".

The Prime Minister told MPs that "she had listened very carefully to what has been said" since the Commons debate on the deal began last week and that the vote will be deferred so that she can hold emergency talks with the EU leaders to discuss possible changes to the backstop.

Mrs May said she believed there was "a majority to be won" in the Commons on her deal, if she is able to "secure additional reassurance on the backstop".

Mrs May is now expected to seek clarity from the European Union over how Britain could escape from being trapped indefinitely in a Northern Ireland backstop.

This is the rule that either the Province or the whole of the UK must obey EU rules until Brussels agrees that a hard border with Ireland is not a prospect.

Commons Speaker John Bercow dished out a telling off to ministers, saying it was "deeply discourteous" to delay the vote and urging the Prime Minister to hold a vote on the matter before "unilaterally" deciding to postpone. But Mrs May's spokesman said the Government would not give MPs the opportunity to vote on the delay.

Addressing MPs in the Commons, the PM said the fundamental question for MPs to answer was: "Does this House want to deliver Brexit?"

If so, she said that they needed to ask themselves whether they were willing to make compromises.

Mrs May said it was an "inescapable fact" that the Northern Ireland/Ireland border would become the external EU border on March 30.

She told the Commons: "The challenge this poses must be met, not with rhetoric, but with real and workable solutions.

"Businesses operate across that border, people live their lives crossing and recrossing it every day.

"I have been there and spoken to some of those people, they do not want their every-day lives to change as a result of the decision we have taken. They do not want a return to a hard border.

"If this House cares about preserving our Union it must listen to those people because our Union will only endure with their consent."

Mrs May said she would meet her EU counterparts in advance of the European Council this week.

She told MPs: "I am clear from what I have heard in this place and from my own conversations that these elements do not offer a sufficient number of colleagues the reassurance that they need.

"I spoke to a number of EU leaders over the weekend and in advance of the European Council I will go to see my counterparts in other member states and the leadership of the Council and the Commission. I will discuss with them the clear concerns that this House has expressed."

In his response, Mr Corbyn said: "This is a bad deal for Britain, bad deal for our economy and a bad deal for our democracy. Our country deserves better than this.

"If the Prime Minister cannot be clear that she can and will renegotiate a deal then she must make way. And if she is going back to Brussels then she needs to build a consensus in this house.

"There is no point at all in this Prime Minister bringing back the same deal again which clearly does not supported by this house.

"We have endured to two years of shambolic negotiations. We’re on our third Brexit secretary and it appears each one has been excluded from vital negotiations. They’ve become the first government in British history to be held in contempt of parliament.

"People are in despair at the state of these failed negotiations. The fault lies solely at the door of this shambolic government."

Lib Dem leader Vince Cable said the Government had completely lost control and that he would support Labour if it chose to issue a no confidence motion against the Government.

DUP leader Arlene Fosters, whose MPs prop up Mrs May's Government, said the Government's approach to Brexit is "chaotic".

Mrs Foster said: "The fundamentally flawed Withdrawal Agreement would have undermined our United Kingdom economy and the Union itself.

"The backstop would have left Northern Ireland trapped as a hostage to the European Union."

On Monday morning, at least eight Cabinet ministers were pressing Mrs May in private to back away from what was looking like a defeat by 100 or more votes in the Commons.

However, at 11.20am the Prime Minister’s official spokesman told a regular meeting of journalists at Westminster that it would go ahead as scheduled tomorrow evening.

Ten minutes later, the Bloomberg agency reported that the U-turn was taking place. No 10 then said Mrs May would make a Commons statement this afternoon.