No-deal Brexit would be mistake, says Hunt

Eurosceptics upset after Foreign Secretary suggests Britain could make more concessions to EU

Eurosceptics have criticised Jeremy Hunt after the Foreign Secretary warned that a no deal Brexit would be “a mistake that we would regret for generations”. Mr Hunt was accused of weakening Theresa May’s hand in negotiations by saying a “messy, ugly divorce” must be avoided, with one Conservative colleague labelling him “barmy”. Mr Hunt hinted that Britain could make concessions that would tie the country more closely to Europe in order to get a deal signed off.

Gordon Rayner, Steven Swinford

Christopher Hope

JEREMY HUNT has been heavily criticised by Eurosceptics after warning a no-deal Brexit would be “a mistake that we would regret for generations”.

The Foreign Secretary was accused of weakening Theresa May’s hand in negotiations by saying a “messy, ugly divorce” must be avoided, with one Conservative colleague labelling him “barmy”. Ministers have spent recent weeks emphasising to the European Union that Mrs May is “not kidding” when she says she is prepared to walk away rather than accept a bad deal, and that Britain would still thrive with no deal.

Mr Hunt sent the opposite message to Brussels yesterday and also hinted that Britain could make concessions that would tie the country more closely to Europe in order to get a deal signed off.

In an interview with ITV News, Mr Hunt said that “the UK would find a way to prosper and thrive” in the event of no deal but “it would be a huge geostrategic mistake”.

He went on: “We want a deal with the EU that means we really can have a deep and special partnership, a friendship, going forward not just in terms of our economic relations, but in terms of everything else that happens on the world stage, and it would be a mistake that we would regret for generations if we were to have a messy, ugly divorce and that’s what we all want to avoid.”

Asked if the Chequers proposal for a Brexit deal was a “take it or leave it” offer to the EU, he said: “No, but it is a framework on which I believe the ultimate deal will be based.”

EU leaders are reportedly prepared to allow Britain access to the single market for goods as well as ending free movement of people in return for accepting adherence to EU rules on environmental and social matters in perpetuity. Brexiteers say such an agreement is “not Brexit”. Conor Burns, the Leave-supporting Tory MP, said it was “barmy”. He added: “The thing that we want to avoid for ‘generations to come’ is being locked into a permanent orbit around the EU where we end up with a deal but don’t have a seat around the table.”

The Daily Telegraph can also reveal that Brexiteers are launching a “Battle for Britain” campaign as they prepare to go to war with Mrs May over her controversial Chequers plan.

Richard Tice, a property investor, and John Longworth, the former director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, have “hundreds of thousands of pounds” to restart their Leave Means Leave campaign. The cash will be spent on a series of leaflets and rallies, while adverts will also be carried on buses in a nod to the 2016 Vote Leave battle bus.

Writing for today’s Telegraph, Mr Tice and Mr Longworth said that the Chequers deal was “a con” and must be exposed as such.

The pair said: “The next six months will determine the future direction of our country. It is nothing less than a Battle for Britain.”

Mr Longworth told today’s Chopper’s Brexit Podcast that the deal Mrs May hammered out at Chequers to keep the UK closely tied to the EU was “Brexit in name only”.

Ilike to think I’d be able to survive the end of the world. I regularly head off into the mountains with just my rucksack and bivvy bag for company. Taking a small amount of food to cook with, I’ll forage for extras in whatever terrain I find myself in. And there’s no relying on Google to get me out of any scrape. There isn’t any signal up in the mountains, and it’s bliss.

But true “preppers” would call me dangerously naive. They are extreme survivalists. They are not your run-of-the-mill worriers, but are constantly prepared for the collapse of civilisation. And who can blame them?

They hoard canned goods, keep stocks of clean water, fuel and medicine, and have a penchant for gold as an alternative currency should the economy fall apart. They will have a bag packed and will be ready to move at a moment’s notice, to hide away in a pre-selected bolthole should the first signs of societal breakdown emerge. I certainly can’t laugh at them for that. I picked out my own little patch of prepper-friendly paradise years ago – and fell out with a colleague when I refused to disclose its location.

I can tell you it is not in New Zealand, however, the place the wealthiest among the preppers have chosen to ride out the storm. A land legendary for its wilderness – its mountains, fjords, rivers and glaciers – it is also famed for its isolation. Cast out in the Tasman Sea, if you really want to put space between you and the rest of the world, there’s not a better place on Earth you can go.

But the New Zealanders have got fed up. The country’s government has just banned foreigners from buying property there, partly because of the effect on prices of preppers building sophisticated hideaways, replete with underground layers. So where will they go now?

I have a modest proposal: they should come to the UK – though perhaps not the mainland. We are an island, of course, blessed with our own dramatic scenery, and I can think of plenty of places you might be able to hide. Wales’s mountainous hinterland, one of the areas I most like to explore, is littered with peaks, huts, old barns, crofts, castles and even defunct underground war bunkers. Rather than acres, we offer bothies, caves and old mines. However, are we too close to the rest of Europe? True preppers won’t think us remote enough to survive some of the more extreme scenarios they worry about.

So what about our overseas territories? The Union Jack flies above some of the most distant and beautiful places on earth. Perhaps the preppers would like a piece of land on Tristan da Cunha, home to a few hundred people in the South Atlantic, or Ascension Island? Delightful Saint Helena has just opened a new airport, perfect for private jets.

Then, for the more hard core, there’s the subantarctic isles of South Georgia and the ludicrously remote South Sandwich Islands, which no one but a handful of penguins calls home. Safety at its most remote – for a money-can’tbuy (but really it can) price tag, with a one-way ticket included.

Perhaps all this is a little silly and perhaps we shouldn’t be playing the preppers’ game, and should instead encourage them to spend some of that money on preventing the disasters they’re so concerned about. But perhaps the UK might just have assets that we too often overlook. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if we made a bit more of a fuss about them.