It’s time for ‘sensible Brexit’ says MP Crabb
THERE is no reason why Theresa May cannot negotiate a “sensible” Brexit and serve out a full five-year term as Prime Minister, according to former Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb.
The Prime Minister’s gamble of going for an early election backfired when, instead of winning a landslide, the Conservatives lost their majority.
But the Preseli Pembrokeshire MP wrote in an opinion piece: “Challenging though the circumstances may be, there is no compelling reason why the Prime Minister cannot lead the country successfully for the full five-year term of this new Parliament.”
However, he also gave his strong backing to Chancellor Philip Hammond, who was widely tipped to be sacked by Mrs May before the election, and rejected the PM’s line that “no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal”.
He said: “Forget ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ – it’s time to deliver sensible Brexit.”
Former leadership contender Mr Crabb gave his support to a “transition period between the end of negotiations and the new UK-EU relationship taking full effect”.
He acknowledged there were some in his party who would “welcome a clean break without any deal that might place obligations or costs on the UK”, describing their stance as “no single market, no customs agreement, no freetrade deal with the EU, no deal on EU workers here and UK citizens living there, nothing.”
However, he said this would not be good for the economy and did not reflect “mainstream opinion among Conservative MPs”.
Mr Crabb wants to see a “full trade deal in goods and services with no new customs red tape at borders”. But he said securing such a deal would “mean not rushing into a hard-line approach on EU workers”.
He continued: “We will need to explain this far better to those people who want Brexit to be all about cutting immigration immediately. To achieve this deal would require a transition period between the end of negotiations and the new UK-EU relationship taking full effect.”
Arguing this would allow both sides to adapt to the new relationship, he said it “may take time to train up British workers to replace those from the EU doing skilled jobs”. Echoing fellow former Welsh Secretary Ron Davies’ observation that “devolution is a process and not an event,” he said: “Brexit was always going to be a process, not a one-off event.”