Plan B could emerge if May’s Brexit deal is defeated, Chancellor suggests
0 Philip Hammond says the UK will be worse off under Brexit Philip Hammond has hinted that the government could accept a different Brexit deal, after admitting that the UK will be worse off under all possible Brexit outcomes.
Speaking ahead of the publication of UK government economic analysis of Brexit, Mr Hammond said that “in pure economic terms” the Prime Minister’s preferred Brexit plan would result in a “slightly smaller” economy over the next 15 years.
And he said under any scenario, in a “purely economic sense”, the UK will be worse off than if it stayed in the EU, as exiting will create “impediments to our trade”.
In a break with government rhetoric that there is ‘no plan B’, the Chancellor suggested that “other ideas” could emerge if Parliament fails to support Theresa May’s Brexit deal. With scores of Tory MPS having declared publicly they will vote against the deal, and Labour and the other opposition parties also firmly opposed, ministers have acknowledged the parliamentary arithmetic is “challenging”.
A significant number of MPS, including from Mrs May’s own party, have said they could back a ‘Norway Plus’ Brexit that keeps the UK in the single market and customs union.
“I think the Prime Minister would want to sit down with the Cabinet and take stock, Mr Hammond said. “She would clearly have to recognise what had happened in Parliament. We would have to look at what the vote in Parliament was, who voted which way, whether other ideas were emerging.”
He added: “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, nothing is known until everything is known.”
The Chancellor described the proposed agreement as the “best... negotiated deal”, saying: “What the Prime Minister’s deal does is absolutely minimises those costs, and reduces to an absolute minimum the economic impact of leaving the EU, while delivering the political benefits, in terms of being able to do third-country trade deals, having control of our fishing waters, and the many other issues that will be delivered politically.”