Brexit news - live: Theresa May travels to Brussels for crunch EU talks hours after Tory MPs quit party over Brexit then savage her record

The president of the European Commission has poured cold water on the possibility of a breakthrough in Brexit talks ahead of a meeting with Theresa May in Brussels.

The prime minister is travelling to the EU capital on Wednesday night to meet Jean-Claude Juncker and try to convince the bloc to change the agreement to make it more palatable to Tory MPs. 

Opinion: The Tory defectors will have no impact on Brexit, writes chief political commentator John Rentoul...

Theresa May will attend an EU-Arab League summit in Sharm el Sheikh, Egpyt, on Sunday, Downing Street has confirmed. 

Speaking in the Commons during a debate on antisemitism, shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner - who is usually very loyal to the party leadership - says he has made a formal complaint about Labour's decision to readmit former Militant member Derek Hatton. He says that, after hearing of the decision:

"I wrote to the general secretary of our party, I lodged a formal complaint. I understand that action has since been taken in respect of the complaint.

"I think it was a travesty...For the news of his readmission to come to public attention on the very day when some members of our party were forced out, I think was appalling."

Speaking during the debate on antisemitism, Barry Gardiner also apologised on behalf of the Labour Party.

He said: "I want on behalf of my party to publicly apologise to the Jewish community. We have let you down.

"We know it, we are trying to do better, we are trying to become the party we have always aspired to be.

"We will not stop working until we once again become a safe and welcome home for people from the Jewish community, as from every other."

He continued: "I joined the Labour Party because I believed it was simply the best vehicle for progressive social change in this country. I still do.

"But no party has a monopoly on virtue and in the Labour Party we are learning a bitter lesson."

Tory former cabinet minister Theresa Villiers said a "significant number" of her Jewish constituents are "making active preparations" to leave the country if Labour wins the next election.

She told the Commons: "In many conversations I've had on the doorstep in my constituency in Chipping Barnet about the issue, a significant number have told me that they're making active preparations to leave the country if Labour were to win the next general election.

"This is an appalling and unacceptable state of affairs."

Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters have launched a series of attacks on the new political grouping in the commons, mainly made up of former Labour MPs.

The Labour leader’s spokesman accused the new Independent Group of being an “establishment coalition” that backed “austerity, corporate tax cuts [and] privatisation”.

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Former Ukip MEP Steven Woolfe - currently sitting as an Independent - said that he would stand against Anna Soubry as a Conservative at the next election.

However, the Conservative Party responded that this was "not possible as your membership request was rejected last year".

In an extraordinary turn of events, former Militant member Derek Hatton has been suspended from the Labour Party only two days after his readmission confirmed.

The Liverpool Echo broke the news that Mr Hatton had been notified he was barred from the party pending a probe into a tweet he posted in 2012.

The ex-deputy leader of Liverpool city council was only readmitted to Labour on Monday after 34 years. But complaints were immediately made over the social media post that said Jewish people with any “humanity” should criticise Israel.

A Labour source told The Independent: "The party wasn’t aware of the tweet when Derek Hatton applied to rejoin.

"The party is taking action and decided to do so after we became aware. This happened before Barry [Gardiner] and Tom [Watson] wrote to the General Secretary’s office.

Here's the background:

Defence minister Tobias Ellwood said he was concerned that the European Research Group of Brexiteer Tories had become a bloc within the Conservative Party similar to the right-wing Tea Party movement in the US Republican Party.

Mr Elllwood told BBC Radio 4's PM: "I'm stepping forward to defend the centre-right of my party, a party which does need to recognise the seriousness of what is happening at the moment."

The resignation of three Conservative MPs raised questions about "how the very soul of our party is owned", said Mr Ellwood.

Mr Ellwood warned: "The ERG ... is actually acting as a bloc, taking advantage of the parliamentary mathematics that we now face. They are acting as a corpus.

"We've never had a case in my time where we've had almost a Tea Party-esque capability there of being able to alter or affect the direction of travel in the way that we are seeing with the ERG. We are now seeing the consequences of this."