Theresa May has announced a £1.6bn fund for left-behind towns. Will it be enough to persuade Labour MPs to back her Brexit deal?

Analysis: The PM hoped her proposal would find favour but, as Ashley Cowburn explains, some MPs are unimpressed

Can the PM find a way to get her EU withdrawal deal through the Commons? (AP)

Just days before the 2017 snap election, Theresa May infamously told an NHS worker who enquired about a pay rise that "there isn't a magic money tree that we can shake that suddenly provides for everything that people want".

On multiple occasions since then the prime minister seems to have located said tree during times of political danger.

She did so just days after her election gamble failed, finding £1bn in the government coffers for a supply and confidence arrangement with the Democratic Unionist Party.

Now – with just 25 days until Brexit – it appears the prime minister has once again raided the magic money tree, this time in an attempt to rally support behind her EU withdrawal deal ahead of a critical Commons vote next week.

Downing Street announced on Sunday evening a £1.6bn package of measures for left-behind towns in England – a move it was hoped could act as a sweetener for Labour MPs from Leave areas thinking of supporting the deal.

Described as a "Brexit bribe" by critics, of the £1bn being allocated using a needs-based formula, it is expected the northwest will receive £281m, the West Midlands £212m, Yorkshire and the Humber £197m, the East Midlands £110m, the northeast £105m, the southeast £37m, and the East of England £25m.

Unfortunately for the prime minister, just minutes after the funding was announced a string of MPs who had previously hinted they could back a Brexit deal in the Commons, rallied against the new Stronger Towns Fund.

"The entire allocation for the West Midlands over four years is less than the total value of cuts faced by Stoke-on-Trent City Council alone over the same period," said the Labour MP for Stoke Central, Gareth Snell.

In fact, Mr Snell was wrong: the allocation is over seven years, meaning the West Midlands will actually receive less money than he claimed.

Recognising this, the Labour MP for Wigan, Lisa Nandy, who had already said her "vote is not for sale", added: "The Stronger Towns announcement just keeps getting worse. Government now seems to be saying it's spread over seven years amounting to just £40m a year for all the towns in northwest England. To put that in context, in Wigan alone we've had cuts of £134m since 2010 with more in the pipeline."

As the Labour Party pointed out on Monday, in the current decade councils across the country will have experienced budget cuts amounting to £7.3bn, some £5.7bn less than Ms May's offer.

If the prime minister had intended to win over the support of Labour MPs with this fund, it has been an ill-fated attempt.

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