The Prime Minister met the Labour leader to discuss his demands for the UK to stay in an EU customs union after Brexit. Aides described the talks, which lasted over an hour, as “constructive”. But senior Tories were understood to be braced for a string of resignations by Brexiteer Cabinet ministers if signs of too many concessions to the hard-Left opposition leader emerge while MPs warned that the party’s grassroots were in uproar. Two junior ministers quit the Government in protest at the move towards a softer Brexit and Mrs May was forced to endure open criticism from five Tory MP at Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons.

Tory MPs also discussed a fresh attempt to oust the Prime Minister as party leader by triggering an unofficial vote of no confidence at a meeting of the backbench 1922 Committee.

Others were pushing the idea of a boycott of all Commons votes to paralyse the Government unless she quits.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith led calls for Mrs May to pull out of the talks with Mr Corbyn yesterday.

He said: “I’m absolutely appalled. I would simply counsel my government and party and Prime Minister to stop, think very carefully what you are doing if you give legitimacy to a man who, I think, is genuinely not fit to run Britain and will do it damage.”

Former Cabinet minister Priti Patel said: “A man who sides with terrorists and socialist dictators, would surrender our nuclear deterrent, has let anti-Semitism run rife in his Party and would bankrupt Britain has now been given the keys to Brexit.”

Senior backbencher Andrew Bridgen said: “For the good of our country, our democracy, and the Conservative Party, she needs to go now”.

Mrs May spoke to Mr Corbyn for just over an hour in her Commons Office yesterday.

Their discussions focused on the Labour leader’s demands for a customs union with Brussels, guaranteed employment rights and maintaining a string of EU regulations after Brexit.

He is also understood to have raised his party’s call for a possible “public vote” on the final outcome of the Brexit process.

The Prime Minister was joined by her chief whip Julian Smith and EU Exit Secretary Steve Barclay while Mr Corbyn was accompanied by frontbenchers Sir Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey along with shadow chief whip Nick Brown.

Several senior civil servants and party aides from both sides also attended.

Labour and Tory teams are expected to meet again today to discuss “technical details” of issues raised in the discussions.

A Tory source said: “The talks were constructive and will continue.”

But Mr Corbyn expressed disappointment, describing the talks as “useful but inconclusive”.

He said: “There hasn’t been as much change as I expected but we will have further discussions tomorrow to explore technical issues.

“I put forward the view from the Labour Party that we want to achieve a customs union with the EU, access to the Single Market and dynamic regulatory alignment, that is a guarantee of European regulations as a minimum on the environment, consumer and workers’ rights.

“I also raised the option of a public vote to prevent crashing out or leaving on a bad deal.”

At Prime Minister’s Questions, five Tories raised objections to the Prime Minister’s latest Brexit strategy.

Caroline Johnson asked Mrs May how the risk to Britain of No Deal compared to the risk of a “Marxist, anti-Semite-led government”.

Julian Lewis demanded to know why a Prime Minister who repeatedly said No Deal was better than a bad deal would rather speak to Labour than leave on April 12.

And Eurosceptic backbencher Lee Rowley told Mrs May that just a week ago she said Mr Corbyn was the biggest threat to the UK and asked her: “What qualifies him to be involved in Brexit?”.

Each time the PM insisted she had a good deal and said she and Mr Corbyn both want to deliver on Brexit.

Mrs May had earlier hit back at critics with a letter to all Tory MPs saying “this impasse cannot go on’, and declaring: “With some colleagues unwilling to support the Government, this is the only way to deliver the smooth, orderly Brexit that we promised.”

Further anger was vented at a meeting of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee.

Graham Brady, the chair of the committee, was said to have told the meeting the possibility of an “indicative” vote of no confidence had been raised with him, but MPs had put the idea on hold.

Amid the febrile atmosphere at Westminster, a cross-party group of pro-Brussels MPs led by former Tory minister Sir Oliver Letwin pressed ahead with an attempt to outlaw any Government move towards a no-deal Brexit.

They sought to fast-track a Bill designed to mandate the Prime Minister to seek a longer Brexit extension by law through the Commons in a single day.

In a bizarre twist, Speaker John Bercow had to use his casting vote during the process after the Commons was split right down the middle.

MPs divided by 310 to 310 on a proposal to hold a fresh round of votes on Brexit options on Monday.

Mr Bercow waded in to break the stalemate – the first since 1993 – by using his casting vote to stop the plan.

He said: “In accordance with precedent and on the principle that important decisions should not be taken except by a majority I cast my vote with the noes.”

The last time a Commons vote was tied was at the height of the bitter divisions over Europe during the 1990s.

Ms Cooper launched her Remainer bid to bind the Prime Minister’s hands in the next steps of the process by saying her Bill would stop an accidental no-deal exit next week.

She said it “provides for a simple, practical and transparent process to underpin” Mrs May’s plan to ask the EU for an extension.

“It makes sure the extension has the support of the House of Commons but also that we keep that parliamentary safeguard in place.”

She added: “It also ensures we do not slip back into that no-deal cliff edge by accident because of the nature of the difficult conversations and the complexities of what we’re facing.”

Tory MP Nadine Dorries said Parliament would “rue the day” if it backed the bill.

She said there is no longer a division in the country, and that communities and families are now united in their “utter disdain” for Parliament for failing to deliver Brexit.

Conservative Sir Robert Syms said: “This bill doesn’t have a back date on it, and we need to debate that. The reason is, once it becomes a device and goes on statute, it can be used at any time to extend.

“And I don’t think this Parliament will ever vote to revoke, but I do think this Parliament might, out of indecision, extend and extend and extend.”

Sir William Cash said he had never seen a Bill that was “more likely to drive everybody mad than this one”.

“I really am astonished at what rubbish it is,” he told MPs.

He said the Bill was an “abomination” and “unconstitutional” and could cost taxpayers “not less than £90 billion” if it led to a five year extension.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney last night warned that the risk of the parliamentary stalemate leading to a no deal Brexit was now “alarmingly high”.

In a Sky News interview, the bank chief said although there had been “real progress” in preparing the UK for the possibility of leaving the EU without a deal on April 12 there were still “lots of things to worry about”.

Mr Carney risk of a no-deal Brexit had “felt uncomfortably high” in August last year and the situation had not improved since.

“Unfortunately I think it proved accurate. It’s alarmingly high now,” he said.

“We’re in a situation where the expressed will of parliament is for some form of deal, so to put it in the double negative – Parliament is against no deal, the Government, as expressed by the Prime Minister, is against no deal, the European Union is against no deal, and yet it is a possibility, it is the default option.

“So no-deal would happen by accident, it would happen suddenly, there would be no transition – it is an accidental disorderly Brexit.”

Mr Carney insisted the City of London was ready to cope with the impact of a no-deal Brexit.

He said: ”There are a lot of things to worry about in the event of a no-deal Brexit, but the financial sector is not one of them.”

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