NORMAN LAMONT: If Tory MPs kill off Brexit, they will NEVER be forgiven

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The third vote on Mrs May’s EU deal will be a truly agonising, painful dilemma for many Conservative MPs who have already voted twice against it.

For them the disadvantages have been all too clear: the long period of European Court of Justice jurisdiction, the large Brexit bill, and above all the Irish backstop dividing our country and from which it may be difficult to exit.

On the other hand, if the PM’s deal is rejected by the House of Commons, we may not leave the EU for many months and possibly not at all.

The PM seems to have decided that since Parliament has rejected whatever she has been able to negotiate, she may have no choice but to follow wherever a majority can be found in the House of Commons. 

The logic of this means at best a soft Brexit, one in name only, and at worst no Brexit at all.

In last week’s debate much attention was focused on the Attorney General’s advice on the risks of being permanently locked in the Irish backstop, and his conclusion that there was no legal guarantee that the UK could unilaterally leave. 

However Geoffrey Cox did also indicate that as a result of the various additions to the backstop the risks of Britain being permanently imprisoned in the backstop had definitely been ‘reduced’.

Since the EU has publicly declared it recognises the backstop is intended to be temporary – if it is ever used at all – and given the spotlight turned on this issue, the EU would surely look pretty disreputable if it ever tried to keep Britain in the backstop against its wish.

More compellingly it is not at all clear why the EU would want Britain permanently in the backstop since it gives Britain full access to goods in the single market without having to

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