Former Brexit secretary urges May to give up ‘Chequers’ plan
FORMER Brexit secretary David Davis has urged Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet to reject her “Chequers” plan for Britain leaving the EU.
“The government’s strategy has three fundamental flaws, all of which are surfacing as we approach the endgame,” Davis, who led the Brexit negotiations until he resigned in July to oppose May’s plan, wrote in The Sunday Times.
His intervention came amid reports that May was close to agreeing to a Brexit “backstop” to keep Britain in a “temporary” but potentially indefinite customs union with the EU, ahead of a crucial summit of EU leaders from Wednesday.
Davis said May had made “an unwise decision in December to accept the EU’s language on dealing with the Northern Ireland border”.
“It is time for cabinet members to exert their collective authority by opposing the plan,” he said. “We must reset our negotiating strategy immediately and deliver a Brexit that meets the demands of the referendum and the interests of the British people.”
Influential Conservative lawmaker Steve Baker, deputy chair of the party’s European Research Group of some 60 lawmakers, tweeted that Davis had written a “great article”.
Baker said Davis was “spot on” with his argument that the “Eurosceptics” should not fear plunging the country into a snap election if May falls, since that could only happen with a twothirds majority in parliament.
Conservative Eurosceptic lawmaker Nadine Dorries agreed that Davis’s intervention was “significant”.
“His position has always been, change the policy, not the PM,” Dorries tweeted. “Getting May out and him becoming an interim leader may be the only way to deliver Brexit and FTA (a free-trade agreement).”