If, as seems inevitable, the Commons votes to reject Theresa May’s Brexit deal later today – thereby sparing Britain from the humiliation of being trapped in the backstop, forced to accept EU rules without having a say in them – the hero of the hour will be Dominic Grieve. Him and Anna Soubry, Nicky Morgan, Kenneth Clarke, Sarah Woolaston and a gaggle of other Remain MPs. Why? Because it was only thanks to them that the Commons is getting its meaningful vote on the Brexit deal. It was they who rebelled against the government in December 2017 to make sure that such a vote would be held. Remarkably, not a single Brexiteer joined them in the rebellion – not Jacob Rees-Mogg, not Boris Johnson, then still Foreign Secretary, and certainly not David Davis, the then Brexit secretary who was in charge of the government’s efforts to thwart Grieve and his rebels.
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