TORY splits over Theresa May’s blueprint for a softer Brexit have been exacerbated by Donald Trump’s dramatic intervention over its potential impact on trade.

In his interview with the Sun, the US President said he believed the Chequers plan for a “common rulebook” with the EU on goods could kill a future US trade deal.

He later walked back the remark at his press conference with Theresa May.

However Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said the President had only pointed out what was already in an "awful White Paper" that wouldn't deliver Brexit.

“The section reads ‘In the context of trade negotiations, a common rulebook for goods would limit the UK’s ability to make changes to regulation in those areas covered by the rulebook’.

“The UK wants to do a trade deal with Donald Trump and he said if you want to a trade deal with the United States this isn't the way to do it.

“That's a perfectly reasonable thing for an American president to say."

But Mr Trump’s intervention was condemned by pro-Remain Tory MPs.

Anna Soubry said: “The more Donald Trump insults and undermines Theresa May the more he enhances her credibility.”

Fellow Remainer Sarah Wollaston said Mr Trump had been “deeply insulting” to Mrs May.

Aberdeenshire Tory MP Andrew Bowie appealed for an end to the fighting in his own party.

Writing on his website, he said the White Paper was “pragmatic, sensible and measured”.

He said: “The worst thing that could happen now would be for the Conservative Party, as it has done too often in the past, to turn in on itself, to obsess itself with arguments about who would best lead the party and to ignore what is clearly in the national interest - to unite behind the Prime Minister and fight for a deal that works for the whole country.

“A Corbyn Government would be a disaster economically and for our position on the world stage. And the SNP, obsessing about independence, don’t want to make a success of Brexit. “They want to wreck Brexit and wreck our United Kingdom.

“I hope that [Conservative party members] recognise why I hope the party comes together behind the Prime Minister and this plan, for the local and the national interest.”

But Ross Thomson, the pro-Brexit Tory MP for Aberdeen South, attacked the plan.

Retweeting a picture of the Sun's front page, he said: “The golden opportunity of Brexit is the ability to sign new trade deals. However, if we are aligned into EU standards on traded goods then it will be impossible to strike these new deals with countries such as the US.

“The Chequers Plan hands that prize away to the EU.”

He was flatly contradicted by Paul Masterton, Tory MP for East Renfrewshire, who tweeted: “Those arguing that the White Paper eliminates the potential to do trade deals are at it.”

At a-Trump protest in London, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Mr Trump was unreliable.

He said: “This is a president who has unilaterally imposed tariffs on aluminium and steel, and is therefore very damaging to our industries as well as those of many other countries, and at the same time saying he is prepared to do trade deals on his terms with Britain.”