May moves to tackle Brexit deadlock
British Prime Minister Theresa May has reportedly come up with a third different attempt to define the country’s customs relationship with the European Union when the United Kingdom leaves the trading bloc.
The BBC reported that no details of the plan have been made public yet but it will be discussed by senior Cabinet members later this week as the prime minister tries to end a long-running rift in the Conservative Party.
Two previous versions have already been rejected, with Environment Secretary and leading Brexit supporter Michael Gove physically tearing up a previous proposal document because he was reportedly “livid” that the paper did not recognize his objections sufficiently.
Another prominent Brexiteer, backbencher Jacob ReesMogg, has warned May she risks a revolt if she fails to deliver the type of Brexit she promised.
Rees-Mogg is a leading member of the 60-strong European Research Group, who have campaigned strongly for Britain to make a clean break from the EU rather than any form of compromise deal, but already Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan has hit back at him, tweeting that he is “insolent”.
“The ideological right are a minority despite their noise, and should pipe down,” he said.
May’s government will be hoping its third proposal is received more positively than the first two attempts at redefining Britain’s future trading relationship with the 27 remaining EU member states post-Brexit.
The first was a customs partnership, under which the UK would apply EU tariffs and rules of origin to any goods arriving in the country, then give the EU whatever was owed for goods that later ended up in the EU.
The second maximum facilitation or “max-fac” option was based around using new technology in place of physical customs checks, but both have now been rejected as unworkable.
Latest attempt
The latest attempt to solve the customs conundrum comes in the aftermath of last week’s summit of EU leaders where European Council President Donald Tusk said he was making a “last call” to the British government to define its position on Brexit, saying that the “most difficult” issues remained unresolved and that “quick progress” was needed if agreement was to be reached before the leaders meet again in October.
In other Brexit-related news, the Department for Education has confirmed that EU students starting study at universities in England in autumn 2019, after Brexit is scheduled to have taken place, will receive the same treatment and be charged the same tuition fees as English students for the duration of their studies.
The move, announced by Education Secretary Damian Hinds, avoids a so-called “cliff edge” scenario of a sudden drop-off in overseas student recruitment — and the resulting financial impact — postBrexit.
The ideological right are a minority despite their noise, and should pipe down.”
Alan Duncan,
British foreign office minister