Cabinet launches charm offensive in North
Warning of damage to relations with allies
CABINET MINISTERS launched a charm offensive in the North of England yesterday with the Government under pressure over Brexit.
As Parliament prepares to break up for summer recess, Theresa May summoned her Cabinet to Gateshead.
The Prime Minister then visited an engineering firm in Newcastle and insisted she was getting “constructive responses” from the EU to her under-fire Chequers plan for Brexit.
Nearly the entire Cabinet then visited sites across the North, including a visit from Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab to Leeds and Education Secretary Damian Hinds travelling to a youth centre in Doncaster.
Former Chancellor and Northern Powerhouse architect George Osborne welcomed the away day but called for greater investment in cross-Pennine rail.
The former Tory MP tweeted: “Great to see the Cabinet meet in the North East as a sign of their commitment to the Northern Powerhouse. Now let’s see more devolution (especially transport), investment in TransPennine rail and the plan to reduce the North-South education gap set out by our Northern Powerhouse Partnership.”
At Cabinet, Business Secretary Greg Clark highlighted how plans to replace EU funding for poorer regions with a “shared prosperity fund” was “fundamental” to boosting growth.
ONLY RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin would welcome a “no-deal” Brexit, Jeremy Hunt said yesterday, as he appealed to the EU to strike a withdrawal agreement with the UK.
The Foreign Secretary’s comments strike a different tone to predecessor Boris Johnson – who said a Brexit on World Trade Organisation terms “doesn’t hold terrors” – and came despite Theresa May’s insistence that “no deal is better than a bad deal”.
It came as the Prime Minister attempted to woo voters in the North behind her troubled Brexit plan, which has come under attack from all sides of the Tories and led to the resignation of the most senior Leavers from her Cabinet.
As Mrs May took her Cabinet to the North-East of England for an away day, she said she was having “constructive” talks with the EU about the blueprint agreed by her Government at Chequers.
Mr Hunt, who was on a visit to Germany, warned about the dangers of the UK and EU accidentally stumbling into a no-deal scenario.
If that happened “the only person rejoicing would be Putin”, he said.
The last gathering of Cabinet Ministers away from Downing Street was at the Prime Minister’s Chequers retreat to thrash out a Brexit strategy – eventually leading to the resignations of David Davis and Mr Johnson.
The top team of Ministers met for a special session in Gateshead yesterday, before Mrs May went to Newcastle to answer questions from workers at an engineering firm.
The Prime Minister told staff at Reece Group about her efforts to sell the Chequers plan to the EU.
“What I see is people focusing their minds now on the impact the future relationship will have on their economies as well as ours,” she said.
“We’ve had some constructive responses so far. I won’t say that you won’t hear some negative things being said, but so far, constructive responses.”
A questioner then asked if it was inevitable there would be a no-deal Brexit if Parliament rejects any agreement negotiated with the EU.
But Mrs May sidestepped the question, saying: “My aim is to bring forward a deal that Parliament will support.”
She said the UK would “do really well post-Brexit” and would be “much more outward-looking”.
And in a thinly veiled message to Remainer rebel MPs, she said: “People chose and it’s now for Parliament to deliver on people’s choice.
“And I think that’s important in terms of people’s trust in what we as politicians do.”
Earlier, Mr Hunt said relations between the UK and its allies would be severely damaged by a failure to reach a Brexit agreement.
“Britain would find that challenging but in the end we would find a way not just to survive but to thrive economically,” he said.
“But my real concern is that it would change British public attitudes to Europe for a generation.
“It would lead to a fissure in relations which would be highly damaging for that great partnership that we have had for so many years, which has been so important in sustaining the international order.”
In a statement released following the talks, the German foreign ministry said that many of the proposals in Mrs May’s Brexit white paper “raise questions on both sides of the Channel”, which the EU would need to examine.
The priority for Foreign Minister Heiko Maas was the UK and EU reaching agreement on “binding rules” to govern their relationship following Brexit, said the statement.
“We don’t want a disorderly Brexit, we want an agreement,” said Mr Maas. “Despite Brexit, we will continue to stand for the same values and interests.”