Could Davis be set to quit over Brexit Irish border row?
Minister’s fury at ‘fudged’ customs deal by No.10
DAVID Davis last night issued an ultimatum to Theresa May over controversial Brexit plans amid fears he could even be on the brink of resignation.
Friends of the Brexit Secretary suggested his frustrations could spill over after No.10 circulated proposals that critics say could shackle the UK to the customs union indefinitely.
The plans, on the so-called Irish backstop, appeared to open up the possibility that the UK could remain bound by EU tariffs and rules until a resolution is found for the border problem.
Mr Davis yesterday refused to say whether he would stay in his job if the plans go ahead without his approval, saying: ‘That’s a question, I think, for the Prime Minister to be honest’.
One friend of Mr Davis last night said he was ready to resign over the issue. ‘Don’t put money on the fact he is still going to be in that job this time tomorrow,’ he said.
Last night he held inconclusive private talks with Theresa May that were described as ‘very difficult’. ‘It was a very stern conversation on both sides,’ one source said.
Contingency arrangements were being put in place last night for Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley to present the plan if Mr Davis refuses.
A walkout by the Brexit Secretary could spark a vote of no confidence in Mrs May within days. Mr Davis’s intervention threw Downing Street into turmoil. He publicly suggested the new plans would have to be signed off by a meeting of Mrs May’s
‘Trapped in purgatory’
Brexit ‘war cabinet’ today. ‘The detail of this is being discussed at the moment,’ he said. ‘It would be improper of me to preempt the negotiation but I suspect it will be fairly decisive tomorrow.’
No10 sources had earlier indicated that the proposal had already been approved and would be published this morning, before the Brexit war cabinet has even met.
The row centres on plans for the ‘Irish backstop’ that will govern future customs arrangements if the UK and Brussels fail to find a solution to the Northern Ireland border issue. Other Cabinet ministers, including Boris Johnson, are also angry about the proposal, but Mr Davis is leading the opposition to it.
Mrs May has pledged there will be no return to a ‘hard border’ but the EU and Dublin reject the UK’s current proposals as unworkable and are demanding a ‘backstop’ that would operate after the end of the transition deal in 2020. The new proposal would effectively keep the UK in a customs union with the EU while a technological solution is found.
Brexiteers had demanded – and won – a pledge that the new backstop would be ‘time limited’. But Brussels opposes the idea and yesterday’s document from No10 said the backstop would not only be time limited but would also have to last ‘unless and until’ another solution is found. The contradictory wording sparked fears of a fudge that could make it impossible for Britain to throw off the shackles of Brussels without the EU’s approval.
One Cabinet source said: ‘If the EU have to decide when we are ready to leave then we could trapped in purgatory forever. It is very bad news.’
Former Cabinet minister Theresa Villiers said: ‘It would be troubling for me and others in the Leave campaign if we were to end up locked into some sort of single market arrangement indefinitely.’
No10 last night said it did not expect the backstop to ever be used, as new arrangements would make it unnecessary. But some Eurosceptics fear it could become the default position – and would give the EU little incentive to reach a deal on trade.
The row added to tensions between Mrs May and her Brexit Secretary over delays in the publication of a 150-page White Paper setting out a vision for future relations with the EU. The stance led to bruising clashes in the Commons with Jeremy Corbyn, who mocked the Government’s difficulties in establishing a clear position on Brexit.
Backbench Tory MPs also called for clarity on Brexit. Andrea Jenkyns, who quit the Government last month to speak out on Brexit, asked the PM: ‘Has the time not come to reiterate to our EU friends, echoing the words of the Prime Minister herself, that no deal is better than a bad deal?’
Mr Davis also finds himself finds himself locked in a dispute with Brussels over post-Brexit security co-operation. In a speech at the Royal United Services Institute in Westminster, he accused the EU of putting the lives of its citizens at risk by rejecting UK plans.
Ministers want to continue British involvement in crime, security and counter-terror agencies after we leave and have promised to pay up. But negotiators are insisting the UK must be excluded from the European Arrest Warrant, criminal records sharing, the Galileo satellite project and other programmes.