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The peAG百家乐在线官网 peers of the realm are back and flexing their muscles on Brexit.

On Wednesday, they defeated the Government twice on its vital EU Withdrawal Bill, including a huge reverse for ministers on preparing to rejoin a customs union with the EU.

The majority of 123 in the customs union vote - double what was expected - was a harbinger of further defeats for the Government in the coming days, as they face a highly organised cross-party opposition in the House of Lords.

Former Tory Cabinet ministers went head-to-head during the preceding debate.

Former Conservative Party chairman Lord Patten, who sponsored the key amendment on preparing to join a customs union with the EU after Brexit, was withering about current Cabinet ministers Boris Johnson and Liam Fox.

"I don't think that blithering on about 'Global Britain' or pretending we haven't been 'Global Britain' for years - or repeating the 'Road to Mandalay' whenever one is travelling - is going to make a difference to our trading opportunities," he said.

"We won't do better than the customs union."

However, former Scotland secretary Lord Forsyth argued: "What we are witnessing here is an attempt to create division and confusion in the House of Commons with a view to preventing Brexit going ahead; that is what is going on and it is carefully orchestrated.

"These amendments are part of a campaign that puts the peers against the people... refusing to accept the verdict of the people and they are playing with fire."

Crucially, the frontbench Labour peer Baroness Hayter made the argument that "there is no majority for the Government's red lines" on Brexit, including leaving the customs union, and that last year's general election saw the electorate "rejecting that part of the Government's manifesto".

This highlights an important constitutional argument about the role of the House of Lords here, and the "Salisbury Convention" - which protects major government bills in the upper chamber - not applying to a minority government.

The Labour frontbench had meticulously coordinated with Tory rebels and unaligned crossbenchers on Wednesday, and the result was the seventh largest turnout for a vote in the history of the House of Lords.

It asks further questions of MPs, enough of whom are privately sceptical about the Government's Brexit plan.

The EU Withdrawal Bill will return to the House of Commons in a month's time, and the Government will have to try to remove a likely series of Lords amendments.

Some ministers were relaxed about the flexible wording of the customs union amendment, which does not absolutely commit to customs union membership.

And Brexiteer Tory MPs have told Sky News they expect all the amendments to be reversed, as a matter of confidence in the Government.

But, Remainers argue such a confidence vote gives them far more leverage, particularly after the Government repeatedly delayed a similar customs union vote in the House of Commons for fear of losing.

Either way, it crystallises a crunch point for the Prime Minister between tricky local elections and a looming deadline on a solution to the Irish border issue at June's European Council summit.

And there are more Lords defeats to come.