Rudd insists Cabinet Ministers are showing ‘great unity’over Brexit
‘Brexit sabotage’ claims denied amid united front
HOME SECRETARY Amber Rudd has said Ministers will not be intimidated by threats from Tory Brexiteers amid fresh warnings of a leadership challenge if Theresa May fails to deliver a “clean” divorce from the European Union.
As Ministers prepared to discuss Britain’s future relationship with the EU, Ms Rudd insisted there was greater unity around the Cabinet table than many MPs realised.
She expressed confidence Mrs May’s Brexit “war Cabinet” would be able to come up with a plan that commanded broad support when it meets on Wednesday and again on Thursday.
“I have a surprise for the Brexiteers which is the (Cabinet) committee that meets in order to help make these decisions is more united than they think,” she said.
“We meet in the committee. We meet privately for discussions. I think that we will arrive at something which suits us all.”
Her comments came amid warnings from senior Tory Eurosceptics that any deal with Brussels which keeps Britain in a customs union with the EU would be unacceptable.
Reports suggested some MPs want to replace her with a Brexiteer “dream team” with Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, Michael Gove his deputy and Jacob Rees-Mogg as the backbenchers’ “shop steward” if there was any backsliding by Ministers.
ALLEGATIONS THAT civil servants are “fiddling the figures” to sabotage Brexit have been dismissed by former Cabinet Secretary Lord Gus O’Donnell, as Home Secretary Amber Rudd vowed that the Government’s EU exit plans will not be derailed by divisions within the Conservative Party.
Ms Rudd sought to portray a pervading sense of unity among senior party figures over Britain’s future relationship with the EU, despite the mounting pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May’s leadership during the troubled negotiation period.
The Home Secretary’s defiant comments came amid allegations by leading Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg that Treasury officials were presenting deliberately misleading information to show that Britain would be worse off outside the EU, whatever the outcome of the negotiations.
Lord Gus O’Donnell described such claims as “completely crazy”, as he issued a staunch defence of the civil service’s impartiality.
“We look at the evidence and we go where it is. Of course if you are selling snake oil, you don’t like the idea of experts testing your products,” Lord O’Donnell told ITV’s Peston On Sunday.
“And I think that’s what we’ve got, this backlash against evidence and experts is because they know where the experts will go.”
Defending civil servants, he added: “Their job is to look at the evidence and present it as best they can, analyse the uncertainties... but that’s what they do, they’re objective and impartial.
“And I think what you find is that tends to get accepted very nicely when it agrees with someone’s prior beliefs, but actually, when someone doesn’t like the answer, quite often they decide to shoot the messenger.”
His comments are likely to inflame a bitter war of words between some Brexiteers and elements in Whitehall who deeply resent the attacks on their impartiality.
Meanwhile, Ms Rudd, who sits on the ten-strong Brexit Cabinet sub-committee, has sought to clarify the Government’s position on Britain’s EU divorce.
She said Mrs May’s Government was committed to leaving the customs union – along with the single market – when the UK withdraws from the EU in March 2019.
However, she reaffirmed that the Government would be seeking to negotiate a customs “arrangement” or “partnership” with the EU – as set out in a position paper last year – to ensure trade with the bloc remains as “frictionless” as possible.
Some Eurosceptics remain deeply suspicious, fearing Ministers like Chancellor Philip Hammond, who suggested Britain’s relationship with the EU would only change “very modestly”, want to keep Britain in the EU in all but name.
Senior backbencher Bernard Jenkin accused Mr Hammond of pursuing a different policy to the Prime Minister and went on to warn that Mrs May’s position would be in jeopardy unless there was “clean Brexit”.
“She can only command a majority in Parliament on her present policy,” he wrote in an article for The Sunday Telegraph.
However, appearing on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show , Ms Rudd said Ministers would not be intimidated by such threats.
“There will be choices to be made within that, but we all want the same thing which is to arrive at a deal which works for the UK,” she said.
Nevertheless, meetings of the Brexit Cabinet sub-committee on Wednesday and Thursday are potentially explosive. Mrs May has found it hard enough to forge an agreement among her warring Ministers on a post-Brexit transition deal and finding consensus on Britain’s future relationship with the EU is likely to prove even more complicated.
She has previously avoided a full-blown discussion in the Brexit sub-committee on the issue because of the sensitivities involved.
Ministers are broadly divided among those like Mr Hammond, whose priority is to keep Britain as closely aligned with the EU as possible to preserve current trade arrangements, and those such as Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson who want maximum freedom to strike deals with countries outside the bloc.
Mrs May and Brexit Secretary David Davis will this week meet the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier as officials in Brussels begin talks on the transitional arrangements for Britain’s exit from the EU.
We all want the same thing ... to arrive at a deal which works. Home Secretary Amber Rudd defends the Government’s handling of Brexit.