Brexit: Theresa May urges MPs to back her plan after backlash

Theresa May has urged MPs to support her new Brexit plan, despite a backlash against it from MPs across the Commons.

In a statement outlining the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB), the PM said there needed to be “compromise on all sides”.

She said the bill – including the promise to give MPs a vote on a further referendum and different customs options – would be published on Friday.

But the plan has led to growing pressure from Tory MPs for her to resign.

The PM has pledged to set a timetable for a new leader to take over after MPs vote on her compromise Brexit plan in the week beginning 3 June.

However, some MPs are again seeking to change party rules, so they can vote to oust her at a meeting of backbench MPs later.

The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg also said the so-called “Pizza Club” of Brexiteer cabinet members have been meeting while Mrs May was answering questions in the House – a move she described as “a bad omen for the PM”.

Labour has also criticised Mrs May’s new plan, with its leader Jeremy Corbyn saying her “bold new deal” was a “repackaged version” of her withdrawal agreement that has been voted down in the Commons three times.

He added: “No Labour MP can vote for a deal with the promise of a prime minister who only has days left in her job.”

Mr Corbyn said the issue of Brexit had been “dividing our society and poisoning our democracy”, but claimed Mrs May’s deal “does not represent a genuine compromise”.

Addressing her critics in her speech, Mrs May said: “In time, another prime minister will be standing at this dispatch box, but while I am here, I have a duty to be clear with the House about the facts.

“If we are going to deliver Brexit in this Parliament, we have to pass a Withdrawal Agreement Bill, and we will not do so without holding votes on the issues that have divided us the most,” she said.

“In the end, our job in the House is to take decisions, not duck them.”