The battle for Brexit
THERESA May is targeting a new Brexit deal by the end of this month after Brussels agreed to reopen talks.
The Prime Minister endured a series of frosty encounters with EU leaders yesterday, during which she rounded on Donald Tusk for his provocative claim that leading Brexiteers deserve a ‘special place in hell’.
But despite wide differences between the two sides, the EU agreed to reopen compromise talks for the first time since Mrs May’s deal went down to a historic Commons defeat last month.
Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay will hold talks with the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in Strasbourg on Monday.
And Mrs May and the attorney general Geoffrey Cox will make separate trips to Ireland today as they try to persuade Dublin to accept changes to the controversial Irish backstop, which critics fear could leave the UK trapped in a customs union. Whitehall sources last night said Mrs May was working towards agreeing a new deal during the half-term holiday, paving the way for a second ‘meaningful vote’ by the end of this month.
But, with Mr Tusk and the European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker both still refusing to reopen the 585-page withdrawal agreement struck last year, they acknowledged this timetable could slip.
Ministers are now desperate to head off backbench attempts to delay Brexit next week for fear of losing momentum.
Philip Hammond yesterday urged those concerned about a No Deal Brexit to ‘ hold their nerve’. Speaking during a visit to Gloucester, the Chancellor said: ‘ The price of No Deal is very high for us and our European partners. I’m confident we will end up with a deal. I think the public will have to hold their nerve.’
It came as Labour descended into civil war after Jeremy Corbyn offered to cut a soft Brexit deal with the Tories.
The Labour leader said he would back Mrs May on Brexit if she agreed to pursue a permanent customs union with the EU. In a letter to the PM he dropped his notorious ‘six tests’ which demanded that any Brexit deal produced ‘ the exact same benefits’ as EU membership.
Instead he set out plans for a Norwaystyle deal in which the UK would remain in a ‘permanent and comprehensive customs union’, along with ‘close alignment with the single market’. The move, however, infuriated Labour Remainers, who still hope to persuade Mr Corbyn to back a second referendum that could cancel Brexit altogether. In other developments:
The Bank of England cut its growth forecasts for the UK economy, blaming the ‘fog of Brexit’;
Health minister Stephen Hammond became the latest senior figure to warn he could quit if the Government pursues a ‘calamitous’ No Deal Brexit, saying: ‘I know where my responsibilities lie.’
Mr Tusk twisted the knife by telling Mrs May that Mr Corbyn’s plan could be a ‘promising way’ out the Brexit impasse;
Downing Street denied the PM had abandoned ‘compromise’ plans put forward by Tory MPs to replace the backstop with ‘alternative arrangements’ for preventing a hard border on the island of Ireland.
Mr Tusk plunged relations into the deep freeze on Wednesday, with his ‘ special place in hell’ comments prompting Commons leader Andrea Leadsom to demand an apology. In a difficult encounter yesterday, Mrs May told him his remark was ‘not helpful’ and ‘caused dismay’ in the United Kingdom.
But an unapologetic Mr Tusk stood by his remarks, arguing that ‘while the truth may be more painful, it is always more useful’.
In their meeting yesterday, Mrs May said she had told Mr Tusk that they should be working
‘Public will have to hold their nerve’
together to reach an agreement on Brexit. ‘The point I made to him is that we should both be working to ensure we can deliver a close relationship between the United Kingdom and the european Union in future and that is what he should be focusing on,’ she said.
mrs may, who yesterday met mr Juncker, european Parliament president Antonio Tajani and mr Tusk in a succession of meetings in Brussels, described the discussions as ‘robust but constructive’. The Prime minister said she was determined to ‘negotiate hard’ over the coming days to secure legally-binding changes to the Agreement to make it acceptable to MPS.
No10 last night hailed the agreement to restart negotiations as ‘important progress’, but mr Tusk warned there was ‘no breakthrough in sight’.
mrs may was given a boost last night by a poll giving the Tories a seven-point lead over Labour. The Times/youGov poll put her party on 41 per cent, up two points since the middle of January. Labour was unchanged on 34 per cent.