Disastrous Brexit deal will cost Tories power, warn MPs
THERESA MAY is facing a furious backlash over her plans for Brexit, after senior Tories said the scheme signed off by her Cabinet will put the Conservatives on course for an election defeat akin to John Major’s landslide loss to Tony Blair, and could split the party.
One senior government figure said Mrs May had backtracked from her professed “red lines” in the EU negotiations in a move that could lead to a “seismic moment” in which millions of voters buy into opposition party assertions that the Conservatives “do not care about ordinary people”.
The source warned: “If that narrative takes hold, 1997 will look like a vicar’s tea party.”
The interventions came as Eurosceptic sources claimed that at least three backbenchers had added their names to a list of those supporting a vote of no confidence in Mrs May since the details of the Government’s offer to the EU emerged on Friday.
Mrs May is likely to be confronted by Eurosceptic backbenchers when she addresses a meeting of the party’s influential 1922 Committee tomorrow, although she will receive a warmer reception from MPs who had been pushing for a softer Brexit.
This weekend pro-Brexit MPs expressed anger that Leave-supporting members of the Cabinet had not taken a greater stand against the agreement – including resigning – to make their disagreement public. One senior MP said: “Brexiteer ministers have put their careers before their country. They are traitors to the nation.”
Another figure described Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, who co-chaired the official Leave campaign, as “the main snake in the grass”, after speaking in favour of Mrs May’s plan during a 12-hour meeting of the Cabinet at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country retreat, on Friday.
In one of seven interventions in which ministers expressed concerns about the agreement, David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, warned the Cabinet that Mrs May’s plan for a “common rulebook” with the EU on industrial goods and agricultural products would renege on her promise that the UK would take control of its own laws, while Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, described it as a “turd” that would turn the UK into a “vassal state”.
Speaking yesterday amid mounting anger among Eurosceptic backbenchers, Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, said the agreement appeared to amount to “continued membership” of the EU’s customs union and single market, for goods and agricultural products, despite the Prime Minister’s pledge to take the UK out of both mechanisms.
“If the public perceive that not to be delivered, then the Government, I’m afraid, will suffer the consequences at the next election,” he said.
Last night pro-Brexit backbenchers were circulating a briefing by Martin Howe, a prominent Tory QC, which said the proposals would lead to a “worst-of-all-worlds ‘Black Hole’ Brexit where the UK is stuck permanently as a vassal state”, having to follow EU rules and obey European Court of Justice rulings “across vast areas”, as well as
being unable to “develop an effective international trade policy”.
Another senior Brexiteer claimed: “If this deal sticks and is what the EU27UK final deal looks like, the party will split.” The warnings come after a poll showed that one in four voters would be less likely to vote Conservative if a final deal left the EU with power over the UK’s ability to negotiate free trade agreements with non-EU countries.
Last night, Mr Howe said: “Having this system would make it virtually impossible for the UK to make trade agreements with the most attractive countries which would be the best fit for us post-Brexit.”
Yesterday, in an interview with the BBC, Mrs May insisted the agreement, to be published in full on Thursday, would “take control of our money, our laws and our borders”, and would remove the UK from European Court of Justice jurisdiction.
But in a further move likely to cause alarm among Brexiteers, she refused to rule out preferential treatment for EU citizens seeking to move to the UK after Brexit.
Writing for The Sunday Telegraph, Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, and Chris Grayling, the Brexit-supporting Transport Secretary, stated: “What was agreed at Chequers on Friday night is a pragmatic as well as a principled Brexit deal, one that works for both the EU and the UK.” But Eurosceptic backbenchers and several pro-Brexit government figures fear the proposal for a “common rule book” amounts to accepting EU rules on goods placed on the single market.
Yesterday, Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic backbenchers, said the Government offer to the EU could be “worse” than a “no deal” Brexit.
He suggested he could vote against government legislation incorporating the agreement if it appeared to contradict the Conservative Party’s manifesto pledges to leave the single market and customs union. “A very soft Brexit means that we haven’t left; we are simply a rule-taker,” Mr Rees-Mogg said.
“That is not something that this country voted for; it is not what the Prime Minister promised.”
David Jones, a former Brexit minister, said of the agreement: “On the face of it, it is very similar to what we have now.”
Brexiteers, including Mr Davis and Mr Johnson, had raised concerns about the proposed agreement in advance of Friday’s meeting, but No 10 insisted it was a “strategic” approach that took account of the Government’s slim Commons majority and the EU’s refusal to meet the UK’s previous demands.