Tory donor threatens breakaway Brexit party

Financier who gave £1.5m to Leave says he is ready to fund rival group to ‘deliver’ exit

A LEADING Conservative donor is threatening to fund a new pro-Brexit party if Theresa May fails to deliver on the EU referendum.

Jeremy Hosking, a City financier who donated £1.5million to the Leave campaign and has given £375,000 to the Conservatives since 2015, has carried out private polling he believes shows “clear support” for a new party that would help achieve “what the electorate thought it would be getting” following the 2016 vote.

Today Mr Hosking, who says Leave voters are “being heated up slowly like laboratory frogs” under the Prime Minister’s Chequers plan, says there is a “gap in the political market”. He warns that he “intends to help fill it”.

Mrs May is coming under growing pressure from Cabinet ministers and within her party to open the door to ditching her beleaguered blueprint for Brexit in favour of a Canada-style trade agreement with Brussels. But she insists her plan “honours the result of the Referendum” and would lead to the UK taking back control of its borders, money and laws.

Yesterday Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, publicly piled pressure on to Mrs May by refusing to rule out the prospect of the Government seeking such a deal, despite Downing Street’s insistence that it would “break up the UK” by triggering a backstop requiring a border in the Irish Sea.

Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, Andrea Leadsom, Leader of the Commons, and Esther McVey, the Work and Pensions Secretary, are all believed to share Mr Hunt’s view that such a deal could still be a viable option. Ms McVey is believed to be on the brink of quitting the Cabinet.

The issue is likely to lead to a tense Cabinet meeting tomorrow when Mrs May addresses ministers on the Salzburg summit last week, which led to a fierce diplomatic row after her proposals were knocked back by EU leaders.

UK officials are believed to be making plans to match regulations in Northern Ireland on the environment and other sectors, with those across the border in the EU, as part of a revised backstop arrangement, to avoid a hard border. The plan could be seized on by those advocating a Canada-style agreement.

Today, Andrew Mitchell, the Remain-supporting former chief whip, warns that remaining a “rule taker” after Brexit would be “fatal” for British politics. Writing in The Sunday Tele

graph, he says a Canada-style deal, advocated by David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, is becoming “increasingly attractive” to Conservative MPs and “must at least be worked up” to be properly considered. Mr Davis and Boris Johnson, the former foreign

secretary, are to back a detailed plan to be launched tomorrow by the Institute of Economic Affairs, amid the insistence of Eurosceptics that Mrs May’s plan ties the UK too closely to the EU.

But the IEA report, by Shanker Singham, a former US trade adviser, will insist the border issue is solvable with steps such as large businesses filling in customs forms like a tax return and small traders importing and exporting under exemptions.

The IEA plan is understood to include a four-pillar trade policy strategy based around the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) reached between the EU and Canada. CETA removes tariffs without Canada having to follow the single market’s rules, but it includes only minimal coverage of financial services. Mr Hosking commissioned polling of the 12 Toryheld constituencies whose MPs voted against the Government in July to keep the UK in the EU’s customs union after Brexit. The Government warned that such a move would prevent the UK from striking free trade deals with nonEU countries. The MPs insist that the move is the best way to ensure “frictionless trade” with the EU.

The poll, by ComRes, also surveyed Mrs May’s Maidenhead seat. Across the 13 constituencies, 53 per cent of respondents said they would consider voting for a new political party created with the sole aim of pressuring the main parties “to conclude Brexit as quickly and as fully as possible”. The polling prompted a fierce public reaction from some of the rebels as it was being carried out earlier this month. Mrs Morgan said voters were asked “leading questions on whether Conservative MPs not following ‘the will of the people’ will be deselected”.

Writing on Telegraph.co.uk, Mr Hosking reveals that Brexit Express, his pressure group, was behind the survey.

He states: “Brexit Express has had enough. We must find some way of hopping out of the bubbling water. This is why we have been sponsoring opinion polls in both Tory and Labour constituencies. This polling shows there is clear support for a Brexit party that will deliver what the electorate thought it would be getting.

“The centre-Left talk but never quite act on setting up a new pro-Europe electoral alternative, bizarrely convinced that repeating an action will produce a different result. Einstein’s definition of madness.”

Last year Mr Hosking funded Tory candidates facing pro-Remain opponents in constituencies that voted Leave. A spokesman said that now “all options are on the table”. Mr Hosking adds: “The latest manifestation is Chequers, a ‘Big Business’ Brexit tying us up in EU knots. The obvious question for Eurosceptics to ask is whether the current fiasco is accidental or pre- meditated? Normally the odds favour cock-up over conspiracy ... The more plausible thesis by a distance is a deliberate attempt by the British Establishment to render a real exit from the EU impossible.”

Meanwhile, in a letter sent to Mrs May this weekend, more than 70 association officers and activists say her Chequers proposals amount to a “betrayal of our democracy”.

It urges Mrs May to attend a meeting of the National Conservative Convention on Saturday to listen to their concerns and “personally respond”.

Last night Mrs May said the negotiations were “always bound to be toughest in the final straight” and “now is the time for cool heads”.

Downing Street denied reports that Mrs May’s aides were drawing up plans for a snap election.