MAY’S BREXIT PLAN HANGS BY A THREAD
Boris plotting to kill off Chequers He likens plan to waving white flag Barnier says it would ‘destroy’ EU Even moderate Tories are against
THERESA May’s Chequers plan was hanging by a thread last night after it came under fire at home and abroad.
Tory moderates joined Eurosceptics in speaking out against the proposals, which would see the UK adopt a ‘common rule book’ with the EU on goods.
Nick Boles, a former Tory minister who backed Remain in 2016, said it would be a humiliation to be dictated to by Brussels.
And David Davis, the ex-Brexit secretary, revealed he would vote against Chequers plan the Commons, describing it as ‘almost worse than’ being in the EU.
The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier also declared he was strongly opposed. Tory elections guru lynton Crosby has lent his backing to a group co-ordinating an autumn push to kill off the proposal.
Sources close to Boris Johnson had to deny reports that he was working with Sir lynton on a leadership bid if Mrs May resigned. But they confirmed that the former foreign secretary is talking to prominent Eurosceptics on ways to force the Government to pursue a much looser trade deal with the EU.
Mr Johnson fiercely attacked the Chequers plan, saying: ‘In adopting the Chequers proposals, we have gone into battle with the white flag fluttering over our leading tank.
‘If we continue on this basis we will throw away most of the advantages of Brexit.’
His comments in a column for the Daily Telegraph will fuel speculation that he is jockeying for position ahead of a leadership bid.
Using a wrestling analogy, he said Chequers was a ‘fix’ whose ‘inevitable’ outcome would be a victory for the EU ‘with the UK lying flat on the canvas with 12 stars circling symbolically over our semi- conscious head’. The renewed threat to Mrs May’s plan came as:
The Prime Minister ruled out a second referendum on Brexit;
Eurosceptic MPs stepped up work on an ‘alternative deal’;
Twenty Tory MPs – including Iain Duncan Smith and Priti Patel – are understood to have signed up to a Stand Up 4 Brexit campaign aimed at scuppering Chequers;
No 10 was forced to deny reports that Mrs May is considering a snap election this autumn if Chequers is blocked by MPs.
The Prime Minister launched a pre-emptive strike against her critics yesterday with an article in which she insisted she would ‘not be pushed into accepting compromises on the Chequers proposals that are not in the national interest’.
The PM defended the plan, saying it had helped bring a fresh dynamic to stalled Brexit talks. But Mr Davis told the BBC that Mrs May’s pledge to resist further concessions was worthless.
He said: ‘You are not going to turn around, come to the House of Commons and say, “I agreed this but it wasn’t in the national interest” are you?’
Mr Davis, who resigned over the Chequers plan, confirmed he would vote against it, adding: ‘In my view, the Chequers proposal is actually almost worse than being in.
‘We will be under the rule of the EU with respect to all of our manufactured goods and agri-foods, that’s a really serious concession.
‘That actually leaves us in a position where they dictate our future rules without us having a say at all, so it’s a worse deal.’
Mr Boles, a leading member of the 50- strong Brexit Delivery Group of moderate Tory MPs, said he could not support a proposal that would leave the UK’s laws tied to Brussels indefinitely.
He called for the Government to change tack and ‘park’ Britain in the European Economic Area for three years while a new trade deal with the EU is hammered out.
Joining the EEA, whose members include Norway, would effectively keep the UK in the single market during this period, requiring us to maintain free movement and pay into the EU budget.
But Mr Boles said that neither Chequers nor leaving without a deal was realistic.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, he said: ‘This autumn, Britain faces a terrible choice between the humiliation of a deal dictated by Brussels and the chaos of crashing
‘Not pushed into compromises’
out next March with no deal. But it is not too late to change course.
‘It is not easy to break with my Prime Minister and the Government that I support. I am an instinctive loyalist and have never voted against the Government.
‘But during the summer it has become clear that the eU is not going to accept the terms of the Chequers agreement and is intent on treating it as an opening bid.’
Liam Fox warned yesterday that eurosceptics plotting to topple Mrs May risked sabotaging Brexit completely.
The International Trade Secretary said a new Conservative leader might find it even harder to deliver Brexit because of the bitterness that would follow a contest.
Dr Fox, a hardline eurosceptic who is close to Mrs May, also defended Chequers, saying it was far better than staying in the eU.
Asked about the plotting against Mrs May, he told the BBC: ‘There’s a lot of talk about the leadership of the Conservative Party.
‘ Changing the leader doesn’t change the parliamentary arithmetic and that is part of the problem we have at the present time. You would end up with the same arithmetic but possibly more resentment. That doesn’t really take us forward.’