May could be willing to bend on migration to seal deal over trade and jobs
country & himself … The ideological right are a minority despite their noise & should pipe down.”
Fellow foreign minister Alistair Burt, said: “Enough. Just tired of this endless threat and counter threat. Why don’t we want the best for the UK [more] than for our own ideological cliques?”
Signals from No 10 ahead of a Cabinet summit at Chequers this week suggest Mrs May is ready to compromise her original “red lines” for the sake of a deal to protect smooth trade and jobs.
No 10 said it was addressing “strengths and weaknesses” in the “max fac” and “new customs partnership” models for customs, after reports a third model would be put to Friday’s meeting.
MPs predicted Mrs May will suggest maintaining EU regulations on goods, but not the services sector.
Briefings to ministers of partial details of No 10’s proposals suggest she is willing to bend on red lines such as ending free movement by letting EU citizens with a firm job come to Britain, and by allowing the European Court to have jurisdiction over partnership projects.
A longer transition period, beyond December 2020, was mooted by Business Secretary Greg Clark over the weekend. Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom confirmed it was “under review.” One minister said the proposals sounded like “a complex fudge” but a soft-Brexiteer MP said: “It is a Brexit that might actually work!”
Tory MP Mark Pritchard, a Thatcherite, said ministers threatening to resign over such compromises would not be missed: “Theresa May’s Brexit strategy has the support of the majority of the parliamentary party and Conservative Associations. If, on Friday, ministers want to resign, they will be replaced. The Government will not collapse.”
He said leadership challenge threats were wrong, adding: “The PM will survive, and 48 letters [needed for a confidence motion] won’t materialize.”
Former Tory leader Lord Howard echoed Mr Rees-Mogg, telling Today: “The Prime Minister has made a series of promises … that we must regain con- trol of our laws, our money and our borders … I am sure that she will deliver a Brexit that is entirely consistent with the promises she has made.”
But Tory MP Vicky Ford told him: “If this becomes a binary choice between staying in the single market and customs union or no deal, then I do not believe there is a majority for no deal.”
Ex-Treasury mandarin Lord Macpherson said: “It’s taken two years to recognise what was obvious … Clever party management or rank amateurism?”
However, a Whitehall source said Mrs May was “master of the inevitable”, slowly forcing hard Brexiteers to wake up to their inability to deliver.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson came under fresh attack today for allegedly saying “f*** business”. Nicky Morgan, who chairs the Treasury committee, hit out at the “contempt” she said some senior Tories seem to have for UK business. Writing on the ConservativeHome website, she said they should support the PM or “relinquish their position”.
In the Telegraph, Mr Rees-Mogg wrote that the Government could collapse if Mrs May compromised. Sir Nicholas Soames tweeted: “A message for my old friend Jacob Rees-Mogg: shut up.”