Brexit latest: 75 crossbench peers vote against Government plans as Labour offers the Square Mile ‘a new start’

Crossbench peers voted by three to one to defeat the Government in a row over whether Britain should stay in a customs union after Brexit.

These members of the Lords, who are not aligned to any particular party, backed an amendment which inflicted a blow to Theresa May over her blueprint for the UK to quit the European Union. It instructed the Government to report on steps to negotiate a continued customs union.

Among the 75 crossbenchers backing this stance were former MI5 boss Baroness Manningham-Buller, ex-National Security Adviser Lord Ricketts, former Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf, ex-NHS boss Lord Crisp and former Met police commissioner Lord Blair of Boughton.

Twenty-six crossbenchers backed the Government, including former Treasury boss Lord Burns, ex-Army chief Lord Dannatt and Lord Hogan-Howe, another former Met police chief.

Twenty-four Tory peers voted against the Government as it was defeated by 348 to 225, but Environment Secretary Michael Gove signalled this morning that ministers would seek to reverse it in the Commons.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell today pledged a “new start” between Labour and the City as he argued that it faces three major threats. He said the Square Mile had to adapt to cope with Brexit, a technological revolution including artificial intelligence, and the need to tackle climate change.

Ahead of a speech at the new Bloomberg HQ in central London, Mr McDonnell said each threat “could prove existential, but it will only be through rebuilding trust with the British people that those challenges can be successfully met”.

On Brexit, he said: “We want a deal that builds in place the rights of British financial businesses to trade in the EU, and vice versa, and we believe that a negotiation based on a new partnership with Europe offers the potential to win that.”