Plan B - UK’s secret solution for Brexit
Cabinet ministers and EU diplomats are secretly drawing up ‘‘Plan B’’ proposals for Brexit based on a growing assumption that Theresa May’s deal will be blocked by Parliament.
Senior figures on both side of the Channel are urgently plotting alternatives to the agreement struck by the prime minister after 91 Conservative MPs indicated that they would oppose it in the Commons.
The disclosure comes as EU leaders meet in Brussels to approve the Withdrawal Agreement and ‘‘political declaration’’ outlining the proposed future relationship between the UK and the bloc after Brexit. May arrived at the European Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters yesterday ahead of the specially-convened meeting of the European Council.
Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council said he would recommend to EU leaders that they approved the deal. He added: ‘‘As a motto for tomorrow, the words of Freddie Mercury, who passed away exactly 27 years ago: ‘Friends will be friends, right till the end’.’’ Today, in an open letter to the country, May insists her deal honours the result of the referendum and says she will be ‘‘campaigning with my heart and soul’’ to win the Commons vote next month.
But sources said several senior ministers were talking up one ‘‘Plan B’’ idea of a Norway-style relationship with Brussels, which would give the UK a more certain ‘‘exit mechanism’’ from the EU’s structures but leave the country unable to end the free movement of workers from the Continent.
Under the Norway option, the UK would remain a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), without full EU membership. A Government document leaked to The Sunday Telegraph reveals that economic modelling by the Treasury designed to allow MPs to compare May’s deal to a no-deal exit would also include an ‘‘EEA-like scenario’’ – in a further sign that the arrangement is being considered seriously in Whitehall.
The leaked document states that the proposed Treasury modelling is designed to ‘‘support any ‘meaningful vote’ in Parliament on the final deal’’. Tory MPs fear a series of exaggerated claims about the impact of an exit without a deal. In Belfast, a senior insider in the Democratic Unionist Party, which has threatened to pull its support for May’s administration if she presses ahead with her deal, said the party had also held discussions with Cabinet ministers about ‘‘a Plan B’’. Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, is said to be among ministers who have discussed the idea in recent weeks – although an ally insisted he was squarely behind the prime minister’s plan.
Separately, senior EU figures are war-gaming a scenario under which Brussels could agree to extend Article 50, the mechanism under which the UK will leave the bloc next March. Diplomats believe that a reprieve could allow time for various possible outcomes, such as a new prime minister, a general election, a negotiation over a Norway-style Brexit, or a second referendum.
Meanwhile, Dominic Raab, who resigned as Brexit secretary over the deal earlier this month, said there was ‘‘still time’’ to salvage May’s deal with ‘‘modest and reasonable’’ changes that would allow it to pass through the House of Commons. Distancing himself from calls to ‘‘junk’’ in its entirety the controversial insurance plan in the Withdrawal Agreement agreed with Brussels, Raab suggested that May could regain his support – and that of many MPs – by insisting on a new ‘‘exit mechanism’’ from the backstop that could be subject to ‘‘conditions’’ to satisfy the concerns of the EU.