Focus on the prize, PM tells Brexit rebels
THERESA May last night urged Tory MPs to “focus on the prize” of Brexit as the “hardest part” of the Brussels negotiations begin.
And in a Commons statement, the Prime Minister hit back at critics within her party by insisting that any option to lengthen the UK’s transition out of the EU would be used only as a last resort.
She also stepped up her attack on campaigners for a fresh EU referendum. The Prime Minister told MPs: “Serving our national interest will demand we hold our nerve through these last stages of the negotiations, the hardest part of all.
“It will mean not giving in to those who want to stop Brexit with a politicians’ vote – politicians telling the people they got it wrong the first time and should try again.
“And it will mean focusing on the prize that lies before us: the great opportunities that we can open up for our country when we clear these final hurdles in the negotiations.”
Mrs May’s Commons statement about last week’s EU summit in Brussels followed anger among Eurosceptic Tories at her latest attempt to compromise in the search for a Brexit breakthrough.
Relationship
At the gathering of EU leaders, the Prime Minister held talks about potentially extending the postBrexit “implementation period” when the UK will remain closely tied to the bloc beyond the current end date of December 2020.
Defending the move, she told MPs yesterday: “If at the end of 2020 our future relationship was not quite ready, the proposal is that the UK would be able to make a sovereign choice between the UK-wide customs backstop or a short extension of the implementation period.
“I have not committed to extending the implementation period… I do not believe it will be necessary.”
Mrs May told MPs that under her plans Britain will have fully cut ties by the time the next general election is due in 2022.
She also insisted that “95 per cent” of the expected withdrawal agreement between the UK and the EU was completed – with the row over the Irish border the “one sticking point left”.
Tory backbenchers voiced anger at her plans in the Commons last night. Former Cabinet minister John Redwood claimed a longer transition period could add up to £20billion to the UK’s taxpayerfunded Brexit divorce fee.
And John Whittingdale, another former Cabinet minister, asked if the Prime Minister appreciated “the frustration felt by many of my constituents and others that it is over two years since the referendum and that we have agreed that we will not regain control of our laws, borders and money for over four years after the referendum”.
MPs on both sides of the Commons yesterday united to condemn the aggressive language used by foes of the Prime Minister in her own party over the weekend.
One unidentified MP suggested she should “bring her own noose” to a meeting of backbenchers, while another said: “The moment is coming when the knife gets heated, stuck in her front and twisted. She’ll be dead soon.”
Labour’s Yvette Cooper criticised the abuse as “violent, dehumanising and frankly misogynistic language”.
IN HER statement to the House of Commons yesterday evening, Mrs May told MPs that a deal with Brussels is 95 per cent done. In a bid to cool the increasingly febrile atmosphere she said that it was important for Britain to “hold our nerve” through the last stages of the negotiations and “focus on the prize that lies before us”. And, at long last, she hinted the EU negotiators are “actively working with us”.
And not before time. If the hyped up Northern Ireland border question can be finally settled then Mrs May’s dogged persistence will have paid off. It won’t be a question of three cheers as the entire nation is exhausted by this interminable process. Maybe one and a half is all we can manage.