Theresa May has been forced to defend her Brexit plan to MPs just moments after cabinet ministers Dominic Raab and Esther McVey dealt her authority a major blow by resigning from the government.
The prime minister secured the uneasy support of her cabinet for the draft deal with Brussels after a stormy five-hour meeting on Wednesday night.
Ms May also faces the growing prospect of a vote of no confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party, as MPs, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, began publishing their letters sent to the party's 1922 committee - calling for the PM to step down.
See below for updates as they happened
Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has resigned from Theresa May's government within hours of her cabinet approving an agreement to leave the EU.
Announcing his departure on Twitter, he said: "Today, I have resigned as Brexit Secretary. I cannot in good conscience support the terms proposed for our deal with the EU."
Mr Raab's dramatic resignation will plunge Ms May's leadership into fresh crisis, and comes less than an hour after Northern Ireland minister Shailesh Vara also decided to quit in protest at her Brexit deal.
It also follows widespread speculation that furious Conservative MPs could topple Ms May by submitting enough letters of no-confidence to trigger a leadership challenge.
In his resignation letter, Mr Raab said: "I cannot support the proposed deal for two reasons. First, I believe that the regulatory regime proposed for Northern Ireland presents a very real threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom.
"Second, I cannot support an indefinite backstop arrangement, where the EU holds a veto over our ability to exit. The terms of the backstop amount to a hybrid of the EU customs union and single market obligations.
"No democratic nation has ever signed up to be bound by such an extensive regime, imposed externally without any democratic control over the laws to be applied, nor the ability to decide the exit arrangement.
Esther McVey quits government over Brexit deal
Pound plummets sharply after Dominic Raab resigns as Brexit secretary
The pound dropped sharply on Thursday morning after Brexit secretary Dominic Raab resigned.
Sterling was down more than 1 per cent against both the dollar and the euro, moments after the announcement of Mr Raab's resignation which blew a hole in the theory that Theresa May had managed to unify her Cabinet around a Brexit deal.
The pound was down 1.17 per cent against the dollar at $1.2841 and 1.25 per cent down against the euro at €1.1341.
"We have gone from no deal is better than a bad deal, to any deal is better than no deal. I cannot defend this, and I cannot vote for this deal. I could not look my constituents in the eye were I to do that.
"I therefore have no alternative but to resign from the government."
Reports - junior Brexit minister Suella Braverman has resigned from the Department for Exiting the European Union. She is the fourth minister to resign today.
He was in part an architect of the draft withdrawal deal and is the second Brexit secretary for Theresa May to have lost, so his departure really hurt and made people look.
If Esther McVey, known to have been a major critic of the deal, had gone first it would have seemed far less a problem for the PM.
But now the dam is cracked we should expect to see a series of more expected and/or smaller resignations.
International development secretary Penny Mordaunt and commons leader Andrea Leadsom are most expected from the cabinet.
Shailesh Vara, Suella Braverman and Anne-Marie Trevelyan have kept a steady flow from junior ministerial ranks.
There will be advisors in Downing Street who believe the PM can ride this out, but if another big fish goes she will be in real trouble.
Home secretary Sajid Javid, environment secretary Michael Gove and foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt are the ones that will bring the house down if they choose to go. Watch this space.
The Independent has launched its #FinalSay campaign to demand that voters are given a voice on the final Brexit deal.
Sign our petition here
