Boris Johnson seemed to have ended the Conservative partys agonies over Brexit last year by negotiating a new withdrawal agreement with the EU, and winning the backing of every single Tory MP at least once a rump of rebellious Remainers had been purged.

The hardline Brexiteers who brought down Theresa May over fears her Brexit deal would leave the UK in Brussels orbit indefinitely, could have been expected to kick up a fuss over her successors replacement agreement. While it ditched the backstop arrangement they so hated, it was full of other provisions previously opposed by Eurosceptics, such as a hefty divorce payment.

Whats more, the new withdrawal agreement creates a border in the Irish Sea with customs and regulatory checks on goods crossing from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, a provision loathed by the Democratic Unionist Party which was closely allied to the Tory Brexiteers throughout the May era.

Nonetheless, not a single member of the European Research Group voted against the deal, instead hailing Mr Johnson as a political hero for persuading the EU to revisit the original deal. During the general election campaign they took to social media to boast of the oven ready agreement, and after the Conservative victory it was duly passed into law.

Only now, six months after Britain legally left the EU, have MPs begun to kick up a fuss. Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said this week: Whilst the UK wants to have a good trade relationship with the EU as a sovereign state, the EU has different ideas. They want our money and they want to stop us being a competitor. The withdrawal agreement we signed last year sadly helps them. He pointed specifically to provisions making the UK responsible for part of the EUs loan book, which he claimed could land the Treasury with a 160bn bill.

Last month the Centre for Brexit Policy issued a report, endorsed by veteran backbenchers Bill Cash and Owen Paterson, demanding the wholesale replacement of the withdrawal agreement which it called a poison pill. The think-tank is led by John Longworth, a businessman and ex-MEP who was so enthusiastic about Mr Johnsons deal he left the Brexit Party and joined the Conservatives in order to endorse it.

The irony of senior Brexiteers turning on a deal they once enthusiastically welcomed is palpable, and has been the cause of schadenfreude for some Remainers who are still licking their wounds. But it raises the political stakes for the Prime Minister: after clashing with backbenchers over China and Covid-19, he could find it increasingly tricky to offer any concessions to Brussels in trade negotiations this year, fearing a rebellion from the same people who doomed his predecessors premiership.

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The next Tory rebellion could be on Brexit as some MPs turn against withdrawal agreement - iNews