May's Government makes last-ditch plea for Brexit deal support

Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, the chief legal adviser to the Government, said MPs risk being viewed as "children in the playground" if they create legal uncertainty by rejecting the deal, adding: "We are playing with people's lives."

Mr Cox attempted to put the squeeze on wavering colleagues with a typically theatrical speech as the marathon eight-day debate on the Brexit deal entered its final hours.

Five votes are expected from 7pm on Tuesday after Commons Speaker John Bercow said he has selected four amendments for consideration, ignoring an Irish border backstop proposal and one on workers' rights which ministers had signalled their support for.

The amendments selected include Labour's bid to reject the deal and "pursue every option" to prevent the UK leaving the EU with no deal, and Conservative former minister Sir Edward Leigh's attempt to ensure the Irish border backstop is temporary.

MPs are ultimately expected to defeat Mrs May's deal in the final vote.

Mr Cox told MPs that if the deal is defeated a withdrawal agreement "in much the same form" will have to return to the Commons.

Speaking in the Commons, Mr Cox said of the deal: "It provides for the orderly and predictable and legally certain winding down of our obligations and involvement in the legal systems of the EU.

"If we do not legislate for that legal certainty as a matter of law alone, thousands of contracts, thousands of transactions, thousands of administrative proceedings, of judicial proceedings in the European Union and this country, will be plunged into legal uncertainty.

"It would be the height of irresponsibility for any legislator to contemplate with equanimity such a situation.

"If you were a litigant in a court, if you were dependent upon having concluded a contract on the basis of EU law and you found yourself suddenly with the rug pulled from under you, not knowing what your legal obligations would be, you would say to this House: 'What are you playing at? What are you doing? You are not children in the playground, you are legislators.' We are playing with people's lives."

Mr Cox urged MPs to come together as "mature legislators", adding: "Whether it can be done by March 29 or whether it can't does not affect the decision we have to take today - which is: do we opt for order, or do we choose chaos?"

He earlier claimed there are "now but two steps to take" in order to exit the EU - and that the first is the Withdrawal Agreement, calling it the "first of two keys to unlock our future".

He said: "It is sometimes said that if you are moving from one pressurised atmosphere to another it is necessary to have an airlock.

"This Withdrawal Agreement is the first key that will unlock the airlock and take us into the next stage, where the second key will be the permanent relationship treaty."

He added: "Let us be clear, whatever solution may be fashioned if this motion were defeated and this deal defeated, this Withdrawal Agreement will have to return in much the same form with much the same content, and therefore there is no serious or credible objection that has been advanced by any party to the Withdrawal Agreement."

In response to an intervention from the DUP's Ian Paisley (North Antrim) about the backstop, the Attorney General said: "Of course I would have been infinitely happier if the European Union had not laid down as one of its cardinal negotiation points that there should be a backstop."

He said it was always likely to have been their stance and MPs must now back the deal so the UK can "take this key, unlock the door to this first chamber, this airlock, when we can then settle the permanent relationship".

Tory former attorney general Dominic Grieve said entering into the airlock, as Mr Cox described, could see the UK "choke to death".

He said: "The analogy of the airlock in which we were assured that if we placed ourselves for a period of time in an uncomfortable position we find that door would open to the fields of ambrosia beyond, whereas I'm afraid my own view is that we will either choke to death in the airlock as a nation or when the door finally opens we will find the landscape little to our liking."

Tory former minister Sir Hugo Swire said the non-selection of his backstop amendment and that of fellow Tory Dr Andrew Murrison "makes the Government's challenge this afternoon harder to convince those of us who are still concerned about the implications of the backstop".

Independent MP Lady Sylvia Hermon (North Down) said the "vast majority" of farmers, businesses, fishermen and community leaders in Northern Ireland "strongly support" the Brexit deal, adding: "By voting down the Brexit deal tonight, it is a clear signal that the Labour Party does not care about the consequences to the Good Friday Agreement."

But shadow solicitor general Nick Thomas-Symonds replied: "I fundamentally disagree with her final remark because there is a commitment to the Good Friday Agreement from this side."

Mr Thomas-Symonds later said Mr Cox was supporting "not so much an airlock but a padlock".