May must drop Chequers, says ex-chief whip
THERESA MAY will never get her Chequers deal through Parliament and needs to “chuck” it in favour of a Canada-style agreement, the former chief whip has claimed.
Mark Harper, a former immigration minister and May loyalist who served under the Prime Minister at the Home Office, urged her to “evolve” her Brexit proposals, saying she needed to “unite the party around a comprehensive free trade deal that she can actually get through Parliament”. The MP for the Forest of Dean, who voted Remain and backed Mrs May as Conservative leader in 2016, said the idea of getting Labour MPS to back Chequers had “no prospect of success”.
“We are going to have to carry this deal on our own benches. If you’re the Prime Minister you do have to listen to colleagues,” he said.
Downing Street played down talk from the EU of a Brexit deal being close, as the Prime Minister’s spokesman insisted that: “There remain big issues to work through and this will require movement on the EU side.” Last night Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, arrived in Brussels for three days of meetings with EU leaders including Michel Barnier and Guy Verhofstadt in which she will tell them that any barrier to trade between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain would be “catastrophic”.
Her visit could scupper Mrs May’s hopes of reaching a compromise deal with Brussels on the Northern Irish
“backstop” plan by offering additional regulatory checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea. Ms Foster arrived in Brussels at the start of a week of Brexit talks between British and EU negotiators that could make or break the chances of reaching a deal.
A political agreement on the way ahead for a trade deal, which was due to be presented at a meeting of EU commissioners tomorrow, is not now expected before next Monday, in the latest indication that talks will go down to the wire before a key meeting of EU leaders on Oct 18. Mrs May’s whips be- lieve they can get a Chequers-based deal through the Commons by relying on the support of up to 25 Labour MPS who would offset Tory rebels, but Mr Harper disagreed.
He said: “Get 25 Labour MPS to vote for Chequers? I think that would be very optimistic. I don’t think more than a handful of Labour MPS would vote for it, if that. There’s a considerable number of Conservative colleagues who’ve been explicit that they aren’t going to support Chequers.
“Given that our working majority with the DUP’S support is only just into double figures, you only need a handful of colleagues for this not to get through Parliament.” He also cast serious doubt over whether a Norway-style deal, which would see the UK join the European Economic Area and European Free Trade Association after Brexit next March, would get through Parliament either.
Mr Harper accused the EU of “bluffing” over the Northern Ireland border issue. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, he described how a visit to the border convinced him it was “perfectly soluble” using technology that is already in place. “One of the things I saw when I visited is that you’ve got 208 crossing points. It wouldn’t actually be possible to have a hard border if by that you mean checks as you cross the border. If people mean by a hard border any kind of infrastructure anywhere at all near the border then actually, there already is infrastructure near the border.
“Lots of cameras, lots of ability to track movements of vehicles. All of this stuff happens away from the border – mobile patrols by customs officers and so on.”