Theresa May rebuffs Brexit plan devised on her own backbenches

This is a big story. I've been contacted by a load of Brexiter and Remainer Tories mystified that Theresa May has rebuffed a Brexit plan devised on her own backbenches by soft-Brexiters and the ERG.

You can read their own WhatsApp briefing note on it from the screenshots below.

It was devised by Nicky Morgan, Stephen Hammond and Robert Buckland for the Remainers and Jacob Rees-Mogg and Steve Baker for the ERG, with Kit Malthouse as convener. There have been lots of meetings with Theresa May and her team about it, including lunch with the PM today.

As you can read, it consists of a three year transition instead of two, to either a no-deal Brexit or a deal of some sort, with the Northern Ireland border kept open by a new backstop consisting of a permanent ‘lite’ Free Trade Agreement.

There is no guarantee of course that the EU would buy it. But what has surprised its authors has been Downing Street’s hostility to it, given the very positive welcome accorded it by Tory backbenchers of all persuasions.

Some Tory MPs fear Whitehall’s lead Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins is trying to kill it for mere “not-invented-here” reasons.

Given how the PM is struggling to secure any kind of consensus in Parliament for her plan, her colleagues think she should give this “grassroots” proposal a proper run for its money.

The risk to her if she does not is that her party will insist she packs her bags and leaves Downing Street even sooner than she expects.