How new boy Javid swayed May’s war cabinet
THE Brexit war Cabinet had been underway for more than an hour when new Home Secretary Sajid Javid rushed in, fresh from speaking in the Commons on the Windrush scandal.
Catapulted onto the committee on Monday following the resignation of Amber Rudd over the immigration fiasco, he was greeted with an expectant hush.
Many members of the Cabinet had made their views on the customs row public in the run-up to yesterday’s meeting through briefings to the media or via public comments.
But Mr Javid, in the post for barely 48 hours, had kept his powder dry.
Cabinet sources said when he spoke, he was ‘robust’ in his opposition to the idea of a new customs partnership, arguing that it would limit the possibility of the UK striking new trade deals.
He is said to have told the meeting: ‘Look, I know I’m the new kid on the block, but to me this new customs partnership looks untested and unprecedented. I would have significant concerns about it going ahead.’
One source said: ‘Sajid made the difference. If Amber had still been there I think we could have reached a different outcome.’ With Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson also voicing ‘grave concerns’ about the proposal and calling for other options, it quickly became clear that the 11-strong committee was divided 6 to 5 against the idea.
One pro-Brexit source claimed Theresa May appeared ‘ visibly shocked’ as it became clear No 10’s preferred option could not carry the committee.
The claim was dismissed by allies of Mrs May who said No 10 had begun to realise the plan might be politically untenable with the Tory Party the previous evening.
Doubts set in following a ‘difficult’ meeting with Brexit Secretary David Davis on Tuesday night. Mr Davis, who had publicly criticised the customs partnership as ‘ blue sky thinking’, was seen as critical to winning round the war cabinet.
Allies of Mr Davis dismiss claims he had delivered an ultimatum to the PM, but concede he could not be persuaded.
Downing Street had also received a 30-page attack on its preferred option from the influential Euro-acknowledged Robust opposition: Sajid Javid pean Research Group led by Jacob Rees- Mogg. Chief Whip Julian Smith warned that some Eurosceptic MPs felt so strongly about the issue they were threatening to write letters of no confidence in the PM.
And in a further blow, usually friendly voices in the media were voicing serious concerns about the viability of the partnership plan.
By lunchtime yesterday – two hours before the meeting began - the PM’s official spokesman that the position was ‘evolving’. But this did not stop Philip Hammond and Business Secretary Greg Clark, the two biggest champions of the customs partnership, from making a lastditch bid to keep it alive.
Mr Clark is said to have been ‘close to tears’ as he warned of the potential impact on jobs if the Government abandoned the idea.
One pro-Brexit source called the intervention as Project Fear Mk 2. Mr Hammond also tried to bounce the committee into the idea, warning them time was pressing.
‘If we don’t keep moving forward it will be a car crash,’ he said – only for one pro-Brexit minister to point out, to laughter, that ‘the best way of avoiding a car crash is to stop’.
Mrs May made the case in less colourful terms, but warned ministers the final plan had to be acceptable to Parliament – where pro-Remain MPs are threatening to keep Britain in a full customs union. As the meeting, scheduled for two hours, approached its third, UN Secretary- General Antonio Guterres waited outside, prompting jokes that he should be invited in to mediate.
Sources, however, insist the meeting was cordial – but only just.