May warning: Back my plan or there will be no Brexit at all
THERESA May has warned there may be ‘no Brexit at all’ because of attempts to wreck her controversial blueprint for Britain’s departure from the European Union.
She claims that rival revolts by warring pro- and anti-EU MPs within her own party threaten to sabotage hopes of Britain securing a post-Brexit deal for the UK.
And in a tough message to Brussels, the prime minister says she will not budge on the proposed Brexit deal she agreed with her cabinet ministers at Chequers nine days ago.
Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, our sister paper, Mrs May dramatically raises the stakes in her bid to win support for her proposal to make a success of leaving the EU.
Her intervention comes after US President Donald Trump enraged Downing Street last week by claiming that Mrs May should be more ‘brutal’ towards Brussels, and also follows reports that Conservative MPs are threatening to force her to quit.
In a bold attempt to kill off plots by both Brexit and Remainer MPs to make her tear up her new Brexit policy, the British PM says: ‘My message to the country this weekend is simple: we need to keep our eyes on the prize.
‘We won’t tolerate a hard border’
‘If we don’t, we risk ending up with no Brexit at all.’
She implies that Tory Brexit rebels who have denounced her ‘common rule book’ plan with the EU on trade regulations could destroy UK jobs, risk a revival of terrorism in Northern Ireland, and ‘break up our precious UK’ with a new border with the Irish Republic.
She notes the ‘concerns’ of some MPs over the ‘common rule book’ for goods that will underpin the new UK-EU free trade area, but adds, ‘I am yet to see a workable alternative future trading arrangement that would deliver on our commitments to Northern Ireland, preserve the constitutional integrity of the UK and deliver on the result of the referendum.’
And she goes on: ‘Our Brexit deal for Britain achieves exactly this – and it can work. We will not tolerate a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland or between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.’
She also lashes out at Conservative Remain MPs hoping to defeat her in a Commons vote this week by keeping Britain in the EU Customs Union, saying it would kill off the UK’s prospects of winning its own trade deals.
Vowing to dig in her heels at the next round of Brussels talks, she says: ‘Some people have asked whether our Brexit deal is just a starting point from which we will regress.
‘Let me be clear. Our Brexit deal is not some long wish-list from which negotiators get to pick and choose. It is a complete plan with a set of outcomes that are nonnegotiable.
‘The negotiations with the EU are not going to be easy for Brussels – and I don’t intend them to be.
‘As President Trump has said, I’m a tough negotiator. As I made clear to him, I am not going to Brussels to compromise our national interest; I am going to fight for it and fight for our Brexit deal – because it is the right deal for Britain.’
Her comments are mirrored by Mr Trump in an exclusive interview with Piers Morgan on Air Force One during his visit to Britain (see pages 10, 11 and 12). The president said it was vital Mrs May took a tough line in talks with Brussels so she could ‘carve out’ a trade deal with the US.
Despite Mrs May’s appeal to Tory MPs to rally round, Brexit rebel MPs have privately set Wednesday as the deadline to obtain the 48 signatures necessary to force a leadership challenge before parliament’s summer recess. ProEuropean Ken Clarke claimed the Conservative party was having a ‘Brexit nervous breakdown’ which could topple the ‘unfathomable and irritating’ Mrs May.
Meanwhile, a Government minister here has criticised his own Government and the EU for their hardline stance on Britain in Brexit talks. The unnamed minister said: ‘I think we have to encourage. Mrs May is in a very difficult position, and I think we need to be a little bit more conciliatory to the Brits.
‘I think that the EU is going to have to move a little bit. I think that the proposals that Mrs May has on the table, in the White Paper, include a lot of reasonable options and we should look at them.
‘I think that the EU and Mrs May should be a little bit more flexible – but we should give her a little less flak because she is in a very difficult position.’