Brexiteer disarray as they shelve Chequers Plan B

Report killed off by call for a Star Wars shield and Falklands force

TORY Eurosceptics were on the back foot last night after plans to publish an alternative Brexit blueprint were shelved indefinitely.

The European Research Group of 60 MPs, whose discipline has shaken No10, suffered a serious setback after senior figure decided a 140-page document was not fit to be published.

Last week, the group told journalists it had drawn up a series of announcements to show it had a full alternative to Theresa May’s Chequers agreement.

But the plan – seen as a plank in the group’s campaign against Chequers – was dropped after senior members spotted inaccuracies and warned that some of the ideas would be seen as eccentric.

Leaked drafts suggested it contained a number of radical ideas, including a Star Wars-style missile defence shield, an expeditionary force to defend the Falklands and dropping all tariffs on food, which the farming establishment claims would destroy British agriculture.

One source said: ‘We had to pull it. We had to make sure every dot and comma was sensible or we would be torn apart. Some of the ideas, such as the Falklands force, were nonsense. That’s got nothing to do with Brexit and should never have been in there.’

Another said some in the group had included their own pet projects, such as massively boosting defence spending, that were unrelated to Brexit. The report, entitled A Better Deal For Britain, is now not expected to be published.

The group faced further confusion last night over its plans for resolving the problem of the Northern Ireland border, which are due to be published this morning.

Sources said an early draft that proposed allowing ‘flying squads’ of tax inspectors to carry out checks away from the border had been dropped.

‘It’s not been our finest week,’ one member of the ERG acknowledged last night. ‘But I wouldn’t write us off. Chequers is not going to get through – we will make sure of that.’ In other developments:

Boris Johnson threw his weight behind a new report calling for the UK to leave the EU without a deal, and warned: ‘I cannot possibly vote for Chequers.’

The Economists for Free Trade group said no-deal would let the UK make global trade deals and cut regulation, boosting the economy by £1trillion over 15 years.

Chancellor Philip Hammond warned the UK would still have to pay much of the £39billion Brexit divorce bill in the event of no deal.

Whitehall sources said the EU was preparing for an emergency summit in November to hammer out a Brexit deal with the UK amid fears time was running out.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove geared up to launch the Agriculture Bill – the most radical change to farming subsidies for since Britain joined the EU.

The setback to the ERG’s plans has delighted Downing Street, which sent out loyalists to point out that the party’s Eurosceptic wing no longer claimed to have a fully worked-up alternative plan.

One senior Tory source said: ‘They have been promising an alternative plan since Chequers and we were all ears, if a bit sceptical.

‘Now it turns out they haven’t got one after all – or at least not one they are prepared to subject to public scrutiny. It is a shambles.’

This week’s setback has highlighted internal divisions within the ERG.

Some, such as the former Cabinet ministers John Redwood and Iain Duncan Smith, are happy to leave the EU without a deal.

But others, including the former chairman Steve Baker, are nervous about the potential disruption caused by a disorderly Brexit and would prefer to get some sort of deal in place before next March.

Attending the launch of the Economists for Free Trade report yesterday, Mr Johnson said the alternative was a free-trade deal, as laid out by Theresa May in her Lancaster House speech last year. Economist Patrick Minford said leaving on World Trade Organisation terms would boost the economy by 7 per cent over 15 years.

But Mr Hammond savaged this forecast as ‘not sustainable’.

No 10 said Chequers was ‘the only serious, credible and negotiable plan on the table which delivers on the will of the British people and prevents the imposition of a hard border in Northern Ireland’.

‘It’s not been our finest week’