No censure as Johnson calls Brexit plan crazy

0 Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson arrives in Downing Street yesterday Boris Johnson escaped censure from Downing Street despite attacking the government’s own proposals for post-brexit customs as “crazy”.

The Foreign Secretary condemned Theresa May’s preferred option for regulating the flow of goods at the border, saying the plan is “totally untried” and would restrict the UK’S ability to do trade deals.

Despite the apparent breach of Cabinet discipline, the Prime Minister’s spokesman declined to say Mr Johnson was speaking for himself, but failed to confirm he was expressing government policy. Mrs May retains “full confidence” in her Foreign Secretary, the spokesman added.

The deadlock in Cabinet overcustomsmakesreaching an agreement with the EU by the end of the summer less likely, with Brussels showing little more enthusiasm for the government’s plans than Tory Brexiteers.

Under plans dismissed by the EU as “magical thinking”, the UK would collect customs tariffs on behalf of the EU, as a means of breaking the deadlock in Brexit talks on the future of the Irish border.

But Mrs May failed to win over colleagues at a meeting of the Brexit “war cabinet” last week, forcing her to ask officials to rework the plan.