May, cabinet prepping for no-deal Brexit

U.K. PM plans summit with cabinet ministers

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is stepping up the government’s preparations in case Brexit negotiations break down and the country crashes out of the European Union without a deal.

May is planning a top-level meeting of her cabinet ministers early in September specifically to discuss how to ready the U.K. for a no-deal Brexit, according to people familiar with the matter.

Separately, a working group of senior government officials is being convened to devise ways to keep the Irish border free of customs checks and police even if there’s no withdrawal agreement, one of the people said.

“Our negotiations on our future relationship have reached an impasse,” May told Tory party members in a letter on Wednesday, published on the ConservativeHome website.

She said the two options on offer from the EU — a standard free-trade deal or membership of the customs union plus an extended version of the European Economic Area — are “not acceptable to me, or to the United Kingdom.”

The U.K. is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29, but talks between the two sides are making painfully slow progress.

Politicians on both sides have warned there’s a risk that negotiations could break down, and the pound has fallen to its lowest level against the euro since October on fears of a no-deal exit.

The negotiations are stuck over two key issues: May’s proposals for a new free-trade area spanning the U.K. and the EU; and how to avoid a hard land border between the British province of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

Ensuring there’s no return to hard border infrastructure and customs checks at the frontier is seen as politically vital to maintain the peace on the island of Ireland.

In July, May’s cabinet agreed at a meeting at her Chequers country retreat to step up preparations for departing from the bloc without an agreement and she’s reorganized the Brexit Department to focus on the task.

At the same meeting, they finalized her blueprint for Britain’s trade ties with the bloc.