Today in Parliament, I challenged Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay on his commitment to meaningful talks with Labour after six weeks in which there has been no real movement from the Government. I asked whether he supported his two predecessors, eleven other former cabinet ministers and the Chair of the 1922 Committee who wrote to the Prime Minister on Monday urging her “to reject a customs union solution with Labour” – and his reply indicated that he did.

With the Conservative leadership contest already underway, and Theresa May remaining Prime Minister in name only, there’s a real question over the status of any agreement, so I pressed the Brexit Secretary on whether he agreed with the statement in the letter that “No leader can bind his or her successor, so the deal would likely be at best temporary at worst illusory”.  He wouldn’t disagree with the statement, and instead said that he would support leaving the EU without a deal if May’s doomed deal fails again when it returns in a fortnight.

Watch the full exchange by clicking below: