The Commons has approved Rishi Sunak’s revised plan for post-Brexit Northern Ireland trade, but with a rebellion by a seeming 20-plus Conservative MPs.
The vote was passed by 515 votes to 29. While the breakdown of votes is not immediately released, with eight Democratic Unionist party MPs set to have voted against it, that is likely to have meant 21 Conservative rebels defied the three-line whip.
The rebellion was boosted after Boris Johnson and Liz Truss both announced in advance that they would oppose the proposals, agreed last month between Sunak and the European Commission.
The European Research Group (ERG) of Brexit-supporting Tory MPs recommended its members did not support the plan, saying it did not meet the stated objectives of the government.
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party also came out against the deal, which revamps the protocol Johnson agreed, seeking to ease trade in goods between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
The vote was to approve just one element of the deal, the so-called Stormont brake veto on new EU regulations, but has been seen as a proxy for approval of the entire plan, formally known as the Windsor framework.
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