Ministers facing an all-night summit to set Brussels plan
THERESA May is threatening to force her Cabinet ministers to work through the night to thrash out a plan for the Brexit negotiations with Brussels.
She is due to convene a crunch meeting of her key Brexit sub-committee at Chequers tomorrow after weeks of squabbling over the Government’s blueprint for relations with the EU.
Last night she received a letter from 63 Tory backbench MPs urging her to stick to her plans to free Britain from Brussels rule completely.
Insiders say the meeting at her official country residence is scheduled to last from 2pm until 10pm but could run into the early hours to get everyone to sign up to the plan.
Mrs May is expected to seek to unite her divided colleagues around proposals to keep British regulations aligned with Brussels to allow “frictionless trade”. To
reassure Eurosceptic ministers, she will say Britain should have the freedom to move away from Brussels rules under “managed divergence”.
Her attempt to broker a compromise follows a series of bitter disputes between Brexit enthusiasts led by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Environment Secretary Michael Gove and supporters of continuing close links with Brussels, headed by Chancellor Philip Hammond.
Last night’s letter from the powerful European Reform Group (ERG) led by Jacob Rees-Mogg comes amid pressure from the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier and his Remainer allies in Parliament to keep Britain in the single market and customs union.
Listing six key demands the group said that we should rejoin the World Trade Organisation as an independent member and take back control of its tariff regime, have full regulatory autonomy from the EU, Brexit negotiations should dovetail with free trade talks around the world which should start immediately and the UK should be seen as an equal partner by the EU.
Crucially, the letter demanded that the transition period with the EU until the end of 2020 should be under World Trade Organisation rules where Britain is free to plot its own course and not under EU rules as demanded by Brussels and planned for by the Treasury.
Former party leader Lord Hague yesterday warned that the Chequers meeting is likely to see one of the most important Cabinet discussions in a generation.
He said if they failed to come up with a workable plan, it could lead to the election of the most Left-wing and extremist government Britain has ever known.
EU Exit Secretary David Davis yesterday used a speech in Austria to signal that Britain was not planning a mass cull of regulations after Brexit.
His comments were welcomed by the British Chambers of Commerce director general Adam Marshall.
He said: “UK firms would welcome a pragmatic agreement between the UK and the EU that ensures businesses face only one set of regulatory approvals to sell their goods across borders.”
Allie Renison, of the Institute of Directors, said: “Business leaders welcome his speech, which acknowledges that equivalent standards and regulations should not impede market access, but firms will require more clarity on how this would work in practice.”