A shambles pushing us towards no deal

WHAT an unholy mess. Just three days after an ostentatious show of Cabinet unity at the Chequers summit, the Parliamentary Conservative party is plunged into chaos.

As this ghastly car crash of a day unfolded, discontent over Theresa May’s Brexit White Paper turned into naked rebellion. First came the dramatic resignation of Brexit Secretary David Davis, followed later by that of his junior minister Steve Baker.

But it was when Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson walked out of the Cabinet that the drama became a full-scale crisis – and a gift for Jeremy Corbyn.

As Stephen Glover argues on this page, if there’s anything guaranteed to propel this economically illiterate Marxist into Downing Street – with all the disastrous consequences that would inflict on the country – it’s a Tory party at war with itself.

Let’s be brutally frank. This is an insurrection entirely of the Government’s own making.

Although Mrs May’s plan may be the best she could come up with in difficult circumstances, there are troubling questions over whether it can genuinely achieve the central goal of taking back control (remember that promise?).

The Brexiteers clearly believe it won’t – and the Mail has sympathy with them. They see proposals for a ‘common rulebook’ on goods, ‘regulatory harmonisation’ and the new ‘facilitated customs arrangement’ as a sell-out of the referendum mandate for a clean break with Brussels.

With incendiary eloquence, Mr Johnson summed up their feelings: ‘ The dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.’ It was, he said, ‘a semi-Brexit’. Intellectually, this paper can only agree with him.

Indeed, so do Conservative voters. A poll published in this paper on Saturday suggested that settling for a ‘soft’ Brexit could lose the Tories the next election, with two thirds of Party supporters saying they would prefer no deal.

But we regret that Mr Johnson felt he had to resign. His departure risks destabilising the Government at a crucial time. And what happens next? Do the rebels really want to force an exhausting three-month leadership election? Would Mr Johnson – or anyone else – do a better job of delivering Brexit (without a Commons majority) than Mrs May? And do the rebels have an alternative plan for leaving the EU with a free trade deal?

The Mail understands – and shares – the Brexiteers’ frustration. But the answer to all these questions is surely no. The best way forward must be to back Mrs May to get us out of the EU, then amend some of the more unpalatable detail at a later date.

But in return, she must pledge not to give one more inch to the strutting martinets in Brussels, who yesterday could barely contain their glee. Up to now they have been utterly intransigent and they’re already suggesting they will reject Mrs May’s proposals as unworkable.

This would be a fatal miscalculation. Time is short and the prospect of Britain crashing out with no deal is becoming more likely by the day. If Mr Barnier continues to stonewall, this likelihood will become a certainty.

He may be insouciant about that outcome. But the car makers of Germany, wine producers of France and farmers of Ireland – who could face long customs queues and import tariffs – certainly aren’t. Mr Barnier is under more pressure than he pretends.

True, no deal would also be bad for Britain in the short term. But we must not fear it. Chancellor Philip Hammond has finally agreed to step up preparations for no deal, and not before time.

Yes, Britain wants a deal – but not if it means ceding control of our borders, our laws and our trade. Those principles are non-negotiable.

Mrs May’s message to Brussels – and to Tory Brexiteers – must be loud and clear: unconditional surrender is not an option.