BURNHAM MP James Heappey made an impassioned speech to Parliament during a debate over Theresa May's Brexit deal.

A parliamentary vote on the deal planned for Tuesday was called off on Monday as it became clear it was unlikely it would be passed by MPs.

Mrs May spent the day instead in talks with fellow leaders, including Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mark Rutte, prime minister of the Netherlands.

She said she had found a "shared determination" to address MPs' concerns about the proposed backstop arrangement for the Irish border, in order to allow the deal to be brought back to the House of Commons and ratified.

Yesterday (Tuesday), MPs instead debated the withdrawal of the vote - and Mr Heappey was among those who spoke.

He said: "I left work last night embarrassed to call myself a Member of Parliament.

"The Government is not without blame; The deal is not perfect, and our Brexit journey could have been managed better.

"But yesterday evening, footage was being shown around the world of the Mace being taken, apparently because - when legions of MPs have been on TV saying they couldn't vote for the deal and that the Prime Minister needed to do better - they were outraged that she wanted to go off and do exactly as we had instructed.

"It turns out that for too many of us in this place, the politics matters more than the reality.

"Very few of those who intended to vote against the deal really wanted the Prime Minister to go off and do any better.

"They wanted no deal, or no Brexit, or a second referendum, or a general election, or a new Prime Minister.

"The divisiveness of no deal, or no Brexit, seems to matter not one bit. The mockery that a second referendum makes of our democracy matters not one bit. The reality that a change of Prime Minister still means someone has to captain the same ship through the same storm seems to matter not one bit. And the fact that Labour say they want a general election but still have no idea what their Brexit policy is, let alone how they'd actually negotiate it, matters not one bit either.

"So here we are, angry that we didn't get a vote on whether we should have a vote, having a debate about not having a debate.

"There's no majority for anything and as far as I can tell, there's little desire to find a majority either.

"At the most important Parliamentary moment in decades we're digging our trenches deeper and refusing to find compromise.


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"In the last few weeks Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister has travelled around the country trying to sell her plan.

"She's spent hours in this place doing the same and now she's travelling around Europe trying to articulate Parliament's requirement that we get something different.

"Despondent, last night I read an early draft of my maiden speech, written just three and a half years ago.

"It was filled with hope Mr Speaker; hope for what our Government can do and hope for what this Parliament can do.

"We've all agreed today that this is not how it should be.

"Deep down, we all know that we can do better, but only if we climb out of our trenches and reconsider all options, especially the Prime Minister's deal.

"The Christmas present the nation seems to want above any other is for us, in this place, to rediscover the art of the pragmatic compromise.

"That's not weakness, that's leadership."

On Wednesday morning, it was revealed the required 48 letters had been submitted to the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee, prompting a vote of no-confidence in the Prime Minister to be held on Wednesday evening.

Mr Heappey soon came out in support of the Prime Minister.