May’s deal to keep UK in customs union
DUP threatens to withdraw support if Britain agrees backstop plan with EU
THERESA MAY will today ask her Brexit “war Cabinet” to agree a backstop plan that would keep Britain in a customs union with Brussels until a permanent trade deal can be agreed.
British and EU negotiators are understood to have agreed in principle to an all-uk backstop plan to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland that would remove the final major obstacle blocking a withdrawal agreement.
Boris Johnson said the deal would turn the UK into a “permanent EU colony” and the DUP angrily threatened to break its confidence and supply deal with the Conservatives and potentially bring down the Government if the Prime Minister goes through with the plan, which it described as a “sell out”.
Last night, the DUP showed it was serious by abstaining from a vote on a Labour amendment to the Agriculture Bill after its MPS stated their demands to Julian Smith, the Chief Whip.
Mrs May’s proposal would involve the whole of the UK remaining in a customs union with the EU while negotiations over a free trade deal take place, which Brexiteers fear could take years.
Mainland Britain would leave the single market, allowing the Government to set its own regulations, but Northern Ireland would stay in the single market for goods, meaning there would have to be increased regulatory checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea.
Britain would also leave the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy, but it was unclear last night what the backstop plan would mean for immigration. Michel Barnier, the EU’S chief negotiator, said that a deal on the withdrawal agreement was “within reach”, but only if Britain remained in a customs union with the EU. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said: “Apparently there is progress, but sometimes the devil is in the detail, so everything is only worked out when it is all worked out.”
Writing in today’s Daily Telegraph, Sammy Wilson, the DUP’S Brexit spokesman, says Mrs May is pursuing “the road to parliamentary defeat” as his party would vote against any deal that included the proposed backstop.
The DUP, on which the Government relies for its working majority, threatened to vote against the autumn Budget. Downing Street had to insist Mrs May would not have to call an election even if the Government could not get the Budget through Parliament.
DUP MPS yesterday met the Chief Whip and Jacob Rees-mogg and Steve Baker, leaders of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic Tory MPS.
Mr Baker said the DUP were “absolutely furious” at the “shameful” backstop proposal, adding: “No one should underestimate their resolve.”
Asked if the talks with the Chief Whip had been productive, one DUP MP said: “The fact that we abstained on the Agriculture Bill tonight maybe gives an indication that we are not reassured.” Mrs May appealed directly to Labour MPS to vote “in the national interest” when the final Brexit deal is put before the Commons. She will
meet EU leaders next week and must make progress in the negotiations if she is to avoid a no-deal Brexit.
Mrs May has summoned 11 of her most senior ministers to No10 at 5pm today for what government sources described as an “update”, insisting that “no backstop plan has been agreed”.
However, Cabinet sources suspect the meeting has been called to bind the ministers into the proposal so it can be presented as a fait accompli to the full Cabinet next week. Tellingly, the attendees will include all of the surviving ministers who formed the “war Cabinet” that shaped Mrs May’s proposal for what became the Chequers plan.
As well as the Prime Minister, the attendees will be Philip Hammond, Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt, Liam Fox, Michael Gove, David Lidington, Gavin Williamson, Greg Clark, Dominic Raab, Karen Bradley and Mr Smith, the Chief Whip.
The proposal is understood to involve a “temporary” customs union, though Brussels has always insisted any backstop cannot be time-limited.
In a further complication, The Telegraph understands that the Northern Ireland Assembly would have to agree to the arrangements leaving the province in the EU’S single market for goods regulations. The Assembly remains suspended, suggesting the Government would have to get Stormont up and running again to ratify the deal.
Mrs May must now try to persuade the DUP that Northern Ireland will have the “best of both worlds”. Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, said: “We can’t have a customs or regulatory barrier in the Irish Sea because that would cause us to be a rule taker from Europe, we wouldn’t be able to participate in UK trade deals in the future and essentially it would give the EU a veto over Northern Ireland’s trading future.”
Mr Johnson, who resigned as foreign secretary over the Chequers plan, said: “Clearly No10 are negotiating a backstop that makes the UK a permanent EU colony. We cannot escape EU laws and [the European Court of Justice] until they allow us to – which they may never do. That’s not what the biggest majority in our history voted for.”
If Britain and the EU agree a backstop next week they could in turn agree the terms of withdrawal, with a political statement on the broad outline of a future trade deal expected next month.
‘Clearly No 10 are negotiating a backstop that makes the UK a permanent EU colony’