Brexit deal latest: Scottish cabinet minister David Mundell fires warning shot at Theresa May as crunch meeting gets underway

A Cabinet minister fired a warning shot at Theresa May’s Brexit deal today just as senior ministers were gathering in Downing Street to approve or reject it.

Scottish Secretary David Mundell signed a letter issued by 13 Scottish Tory MPs, whose votes will be crucial, saying they would not accept backsliding on fishing rights.

The full Cabinet is now meeting at 10 Downing Street to decide on a draft deal that Mrs May claims will deliver “what the British people voted for”.

Senior minsters filed in before 2pm for a meeting scheduled to last three hours, amid claims that several have deep misgivings about a 460-page withdrawal agreement.

If the deal is agreed, the EU is planning to publish the text of the agreement this evening, along with an outline of a future trade deal.

Mr Mundell’s decision to sign the Scottish fishing letter followed reports that the EU was insisting on the right to harvest UK waters in return for market access. It sparked speculation he might resign unless Mrs May quashed the idea.

Scots Tory MP Ross Thomson tweeted: “I will accept nothing less than full sovereignty over our own waters. That means being a fully independent coastal state, out of the Common Fisheries Policy, and like other coastal states deciding who fishes in our waters, what they fish and when they fish. All on our terms.”

The Prime Minister has spent 24 hours before Cabinet fighting to fend off the threat of resignations from her top team, meeting six Cabinet members in one-to-one meetings.

“We will take back control of our borders, our laws and our money, leave the Common Fisheries Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy, while protecting jobs, security and the integrity of our United Kingdom,” she told the House of Commons this afternoon.

But she was confronted by enemies on all sides in a stormy Question Time, including Tory Brexiteers and Remainers, Labour and Scottish Nationalists, all threatening to vote down her agreement.