Earlier on Charles Walker, vice chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, said defeat for the government in the vote would lead to a general election.

The Hansard Society - a charity formed to promote parliamentary democracy - estimates that one could be held by 2 May.

House of Commons
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Image source, HoC

Former Conservative MP Anna Soubry says this deal will make her constituents and all constituents "less well off".

She says people want clarity and certainty and the only way to solve this "mess" is to take the decision "back to the British people".

She argues that young people should be able to vote on Brexit, as they will be the ones dealing with Brexit in the future.

"Whichever way you do it, it will leave this country less well off," she says.

She warns that those with "blue rosettes" during general elections will never do well because of "this Brexit government" if Brexit really is seen through.

"They were lied to," she says of the electorate. "The people who will bear the burden, who voted Leave" will see "their jobs at risk", not Leave supporting MPs.

Conservative MPs Will Quince and Johnny Mercer have said they will be supporting the deal.

Both MPs voted against the prime minister in January.

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Conservative Brexiteer Andrea Jenkyns says the UK should leave the EU "without a bad deal".

She says the UK needs to look "beyond the borders of the EU" and the country is "giving too many concessions".

"We need to send a strong message to the EU that Britain deserves better".

BBC Radio 5 Live

Peter McCloskey runs a number of small businesses in east Belfast including barber shops and cafes. He's been speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live:

"I can understand [the DUPs] concerns, but I believe they do need to do a deal.

"I'm talking to people who are in government, I'm talking to people who employ people in business, farmers and they're all very concerned.

"I'm a very, very small businessman but I'm very concerned... there's a negativity out there at the minute, there's a fear.

"I believe that [the DUP] feel they really speak for the people, but I'm of the opinion they're riding the wrong horse here, and they're boxing themselves into a corner.

"This is a DUP constituency and most business people I speak to want to stay in Europe or they want a proper deal."

Click here to listen.

Contact us: Text 85058 /@bbc5live, external

House of Commons
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Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Vince Cable says Brexit will "make this country poorer, weaker and less secure".

He warns that the trade agreement between the UK and Switzerland is not as successful as it first appears, there are less convergent rules in the new agreement.

Companies in the UK dealing with Switzerland will have "a competitive disadvantage" and this will continue "at a massive scale as Brexit proceeds".

"If you put up barriers to trade, you're going to make yourself poorer," he adds.

He asks for the people to have the final say in a second referendum.

So far, 17 MPs have said they will support May's deal, having voted against it in January.

BBC News Channel

Former Conservative minister Guto Bebb says he will be voting against Mrs May's deal - just like he did in January at the last vote. But he says that for him, unlike some others who oppose the deal, the backstop is not the main reason.

"When we talk about the backstop, that's not my main concern," he said. "My main concern has always been the fact that we're going into what I would describe as a 'blind Brexit'."

He blames former Brexit secretary David Davis, who he claims "messed up the negotiations and actually saw the future relationship and the divorce deal separated".

"What we have is a divorce agreement which has been agreed by the prime minister with the European Union but there's very little detail about the future relationship," he says.

"If you said to the general public, that [if] the prime minister's deal passes and then we have another 21 months of arguments, they'd be dismayed. But that's actually the reality."

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Conservative Dominic Grieve says he finds it "painful" that he cannot agree with the government front bench.

"It is very unusual for members of Parliament" to be asked to "vote against their own opinion".

"There is no form of Brexit that is better than remaining in the European Union," he states.

He says he is sure that the future deal between the UK and EU will be "completely third-rate" compared to what the UK currently enjoys.

"We are about to do a serious and historic mistake," he warns, describing Brexit as "self-mutilation".

House of Lords
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The government has suffered a defeat in the House of Lords on part of a Bill aimed at putting in place new arrangements for healthcare in the event of Brexit.

Peers voted 262 to 226 to support a Labour proposal that would restrict UK reciprocal health arrangements to countries in the EU and the European Economic Area and not to countries in the rest of the world.

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Conservative Tim Loughton, who previously voted against the prime minister's deal, says he is "minded" to support the deal tonight.

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Labour's chairman of the Brexit Committee, Hilary Benn, says the "central question" is whether or not the electorate has the right to change its mind on the Brexit deal.

Sovereignty was "at the heart" of the referendum, he says. He adds that people in North Macedonia want to join the EU because it offers "stability, opportunity, progress". He says that these three words cannot be applied to the UK.

"Her deal has delivered instability" and the UK is now "going backwards".

"The long slow decline of British car manufacturing... has, I am very sorry to say, well and truly begun."

European Commission vice-president Jyrki Katainen said if the deal was rejected the prospect of a "hard Brexit" moved closer and his advice was "fasten your seatbelt".

He told reporters in Strasbourg: "Depending on the vote in the Commons, we are either moving forward to orderly withdrawal or hard Brexit is closer again, more close than ever it has been.

"So, keep your hands on the wheel, look forward and fasten your seatbelt."

House of Commons
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Image source, European Photopress Agency

Image source, European Photopress Agency

Image source, European Photopress Agency

Image source, Press Association

Clearly suffering from a sore throat, Theresa May spoke for an hour defending her deal and taking questions from MPs.

She urged MPs to back her "improved deal" or risk "no Brexit at all".

However as the debate progressed leading Conservative Brexiteers and DUP MPs said they would not support the deal.

BBC News Channel

John Campbell, the BBC's Northern Ireland Economics and Business editor, says: "The DUP have not bought this backstop deal at all.

"For the DUP, the issue is really as dramatic as the entire future of Northern Ireland. Because their view is if you're in a situation where NI is in that backstop and there's no unilateral exit mechanism, then you could be basically on a conveyor belt to the break-up of the union and NI joining the rest of Ireland in a united country.

"That's absolutely the one thing the DUP do not want to see happen.

"That is why they've looked at the assurances on the backstop very carefully and why they are so sceptical about anything which would mean NI could be trapped in the backstop.

"Certainly what they point to is that last paragraph in the attorney general's advice which says, 'Listen, we could be in a situation where everybody tries their best but the backstop is still there and we wouldn't be able to leave unless the EU said it was OK.' That is their big concern."

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"Here we are, time and time again, debating the same issues," says Conservative Nicky Morgan.

She says that, "actually, changes have been secured" since the agreement was last brought before MPs in January.

"Modelling any of the scenarios" has been difficult, meaning that no-one can have confidence in economic forecasts after Brexit, she states.

"There is a danger about only thinking about the numbers" while "confidence in our democracy" will be affected, if Parliament does not vote for the deal, she states.

BBC News Channel

Image source, AFP

Conservative Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg is asked by the BBC's Simon McCoy why he thinks there are so many empty seats behind the PM in the House of Commons today, "on what is one of the most important days in our recent history".

Mr Rees-Mogg replies: "I think because we've had so many days that have been billed as being the most important day in our recent history.

"I think there's a degree of disgruntlement about the theatricality around it and that it would have been better to have a more deliberative approach, and possibility the vote and the motion tomorrow allowing people to consider the details today."

He adds: "I think a lot of people would have been in offices with cold towels wrapped around their heads looking at the legal opinion and looking through the texts, rather than being in the chamber."

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The SNP's Ian Blackford says voting for a deal without knowing the consequences would be "sleepwalking into disaster".

Mr Blackford questions what democracy is if citizens cannot change their minds and urges MPs to vote down Theresa May's deal this evening.

"The prime minister is playing a game of smoke and mirrors to save her own skin," he says, noting that is is "very hard to see" what is new in the deal before MPs today. Mr Blackford says this is not a binary choice of deal or no-deal and appeals for MPs to stand with the SNP and reject the deal.

He calls on Theresa May to "extend Article 50 and bring forward another EU referendum".