Tory MPs are fighting like ferrets in a sack. No fewer than 20 of them are positioning to take over from Theresa May if she’s ousted as prime minister, according to the Sunday Times. Even if Friday’s Chequers summit papers over divisions among ministers, she won’t have a proposal that will fly with the EU.
The BBC says the prime minister has come up with a third customs plan after the government’s previous two versions were both found wanting – but the broadcaster doesn’t know what the new wheeze is. Meanwhile, Oliver Robbins, the top civil servant on Brexit, is telling the Cabinet there is “no chance” of a bespoke red, white and blue trade deal because time has virtually run out. Instead, the choice will be effectively between the Canada model, where our economy would be damaged, or something like the Norway one, where we would have to follow the EU’s rules without a vote on them.
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Click here to find out moreThe splits within the Cabinet are becoming spectacularly public. Michael Gove physically ripped up a paper on future customs options. Infighting outside the Cabinet has also reached new levels. Jacob Rees-Mogg issued a thinly veiled threat in a column in today’s Telegraph saying that “the nation will see if [May’s] promises are kept” at Chequers. Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan responded by accusing the MP of “insolence” and telling him to “pipe down”.
Rees-Mogg’s insolence @Telegraph in lecturing & threatening PM is just too much. Risks debasing govt, party, country & himself. PM must be given maximum latitude & backing. The ideological right are a minority despite their noise & should pipe down. #totalsupportforMay&UK https://t.co/H5YQjaEDSI
— Sir Alan Duncan MP (@AlanDuncanMP) 2 July 2018
The Brexiter MPs who would be prime minister are in an awkward spot: May’s friends have briefed she intends to fight any attempt to oust her; but if would-be assassins wait until after Brexit, she will be relatively free to push her own proposal which seems to be to stay in a single market for goods but not services or people.
The Cabinet faces a choice between three bad Brexits; damaging the economy; following the EU’s rules without a vote on them; or some middle road where we damage both our prosperity and our power.
There is, of course, a chance that in the pursuit of an easy life May decides to keep fudging the issue. But even if the Cabinet decides which model it would like to ask the EU for, we will still be a long way from a deal. The bloc has already made noises that seem to rule out staying in the single market for goods without signing up to free movement of people. Mind you, we won’t know for sure the EU’s position until our government actually says what it wants.
The prime minister should stop wasting time and get on with her job – and then ask the people whether they like whatever deal she comes up with.
Edited by Hugo Dixon
If Mrs may’s team cannot even agree on what Brexit actually entails even two years after the referendum, how on earth did anyone expect the public to know what they were voting for?
Brexiters who indeed STILL insist they knew what they were voting for, despite the chaos which has oozed free since are the ones fooling themselves the most. Otherwise, they need to be in government informing May, Johnson, Davis and Fox.
The nasty Tory feud continues and it seems they are selfishly determined to take us all down with them.