If PM talks fail, we will try to delay exit again
Quit ministers’ rethink Grayling told to quit after no-deal ‘ferry’ firm deal collapse
BY YVETTE COOPER ,
IT wasn’t supposed to be like this – only six weeks left, but we still don’t know what kind of Brexit we are getting.
It is staggeringly incompetent of the Government to have got us into this last-minute mess.
No one can plan and everyone is being let down.
GPs in Yorkshire told me medicine prices have shot up because everyone is stockpiling in case of No Deal.
Manufacturers say they can’t place orders for April as they don’t know whether they will have to pay tariffs.
Police and armed forces are planning a huge peacetime mobilisation, but they don’t really know what for.
And no one knows how all the new laws will be ready.
The Prime Minister is living in a fantasy land. MPs from all sides have proposed ways to make Brexit work, including Labour’s plan for a customs union. But she ignores us all. She says she’s having talks, but she isn’t listening.
I fear Theresa May has been hijacked by Thatcherite hardliners who want us to leave with No Deal. But those hardliners aren’t the ones who will suffer if food prices go up or manufacturing jobs are hit.
Two weeks ago I and other cross party MPs put forward a Bill to avoid us drifting into No Deal. It didn’t revoke Article 50 or block Brexit, it just allowed the Government a bit more time if needed.
Ministers voted against it and claimed they would be ready by March 29. Since then, to quote the PM, Nothing Has Changed.
We still don’t have a deal, a plan or a clue.
No one in Government is being honest about this mess. If the latest round of talks goes nowhere then we will put forward a revised version of our Bill in case more time is needed. But the PM should be sorting this out and getting a workable deal in place.
We need common sense instead of this chaos before it is too late. TEN ministers have lifted their resignation threats – and spared Theresa May a St Valentine’s Day massacre of her Government.
The Remainer ministers led by Chancellor Phillip Hammond were prepared to quit to support Labour MP Yvette Cooper’s attempts to postpone Article 50,which is due to take us out of the EU on 29th March.
Their next chance was to be on Thursday, when Ms Cooper’s redrafted Bill was due before the Commons. But she is not expected to push it to a vote as it is unlikely to go through while Prime Minister Theresa May is in last-ditch talks with Brussels.
Writing in the Sunday Mirror today, Ms Cooper says: “If this latest round of talks goes nowhere then we will put forward a revised version of our Bill in case more time is needed.”
Mr Hammond’s rebels, understood to include Welfare chief Amber Rudd, reasoned that if so many ministers were to quit, the PM would cave in to their demands. But they pulled back two weeks ago, when Ms Cooper’s Bill first went before Parliament, so that Tory backbench chairman Graham Brady’s amendment got through.
That instructed Mrs May to renegotiate the backstop.
A Whitehall insider said: “If Mrs May had not done that deal they would have quit. Now the landscape has changed. They’re prepared to give her a chance.”
Ministers they will get another vote on delaying Article 50 within two weeks of Thursday.