No-deal plans axed after Brexit put on hold

‘Operation Yellowhammer’ swept under the carpet as Tories face loss of DUP support

NO-DEAL Brexit plans were yesterday shelved by the Government “with immediate effect” as Theresa May faced mounting pressure from Cabinet ministers, Tory Eurosceptics and the DUP to name a date for her departure.

Sir Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary, told the Civil Service to “wind down” worst-case scenario no-deal planning after the EU imposed a further six-month delay to Brexit.

Crispin Blunt, a Eurosceptic Tory MP, said the end of no-deal planning represented a “complete betrayal” of the referendum and described the move as a “dereliction of duty”.

A government source said that while Operation Yellowhammer, which involves “doomsday” contingencies for a no-deal Brexit, was being wound down, other plans remained in place.

In the Commons yesterday, senior Eurosceptic Tory MPS urged the Prime Minister to quit, hours after she returned from late-night talks in Brussels, amid mounting concern that Britain will have to participate in European elections following the EU’S imposition of a Brexit extension until Oct 31.

The DUP also threatened to withdraw support. Sammy Wilson, its Brexit spokesman, said the party’s continued support was not a “given” as the two-year confidence and supply agreement with the Tories came to an end.

Sir Bill Cash accused Mrs May of “abject surrender” and called for her to quit. She replied, “I think you know the answer to that”, as she set out her ambition to secure a deal and leave the EU by June 1. She blamed the extension on MPS for refusing to support her deal as she told the Commons to use the 12-day Easter recess as an opportunity to “reflect on the decisions that will be made swiftly on our return”. She is expected to go on holiday herself next week.

Details of the no-deal wind-down emerged in an email from a senior civil servant obtained by Sky News. It said: “In common with the rest of government, we have stood down our no-deal operational planning with immediate effect … the objective is to ensure we wind down our no-deal planning in a careful, considered and orderly way.”

A Downing Street spokesman said: “Departments will make sensible decisions about the timing and pace at which some of this work is progressing given that the date we leave the EU has changed, but we will absolutely continue to make all preparations.”

Mrs May yesterday appeared to pin her hopes of breaking the deadlock on talks with Labour and met Jeremy Corbyn yesterday. A Labour spokesman said the talks would continue.

During the debate in the Commons, Nigel Dodds, the DUP’S Westminster leader, warned that his party would block any attempt to extend the parliamentary session, due to finish in June. The Tories will rely on the DUP to win a Commons vote approving the Queen’s Speech. Failure to secure its support could collapse the Government.

Mr Wilson told The Daily Telegraph: “It’s not a given that we will go into a confidence and supply agreement. We have upheld our side of the bargain. Unfortunately she is persisting with the Withdrawal Agreement, which she knows would break up the UK.” Reports: Pages 4-7

THE question was almost inevitable, but when it came, delivered in the measured tones of veteran MP Sir Bill Cash, it was still enough to cause gasps in the House of Commons.

Accusing Theresa May of “abject surrender” in accepting a six-month Brexit extension from Brussels, Sir Bill asked the Prime Minister: “Will she resign?”

Sir John Major, David Cameron and Mrs May herself have all had battles with Sir Bill over Europe, but in his 35year parliamentary career, it was the first time he had called for a Tory leader to go.

Sir Bill, 78, who spent the early part of the week doing battle with the Garrick Club after his son was blackballed, is not usually one for fire and brimstone, but the anger was unmistakable.

He asked: “Does the Prime Minister appreciate the anger that her abject surrender last night has generated across the country, having broken promises 100 times not to extend the time?”

He was not alone in reminding Mrs May that she had repeatedly promised Britain would leave the EU on March 29, and when that deadline came and went she had told the Commons she would not be the Prime Minister to keep Britain in the EU beyond June 30.

The cold logic of her acceptance of an October extension was that she would have to resign if Britain takes part in next month’s European elections and is still in the EU come July.

Iain Duncan Smith, who as a former Tory leader has been reluctant to criticise his successors, said away from the Commons chamber: “She has to name a date for her departure.”

David Davis, the former Brexit Secretary, said: “What is likely to happen is the pressure for her to go will go up.”

Mrs May, though, shrugged off calls to quit, even laughed at some of them.

In the Commons, Mark Francois, a Tory Brexiteer, tried to shame her by telling her: “Perseverance is a virtue, but sheer obstinacy is not.”

MPS on both sides of the House burst out laughing at the irony of Mr Francois’s comment, just days after he had said he would never support Mrs May’s Brexit deal even if someone put a gun in his mouth.

Jeremy Corbyn accused Mrs May of a “diplomatic failure” in Brussels which had left Britain “in limbo” for six more months because of the Government’s refusal to move its red lines and accept Labour’s proposals for a Brexit deal.

Mrs May appeared to be thriving on the challenge, despite being sleep-deprived after her exertions in Brussels.

She was still answering questions from the media at 2am yesterday in the European Council (3am local time), but was back in London by 10.30am after the briefest of rests and breakfast at the residence of Sir Tim Barrow, Britain’s permanent representative to the EU. By 1.35pm, she was at the Dispatch Box in the Commons telling MPS it was their “national duty” to agree and pass a Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.

She expressed “deep regret” she had not been able to get a deal through the Commons, adding that “I know the whole country is intensely frustrated that this process to leave the European Union has still not been completed”.

Sammy Wilson, the DUP’S Brexit spokesman, asked her: “In these negotiations the EU demanded £39billion, and got it; an unnecessary Irish backstop, and got it; a withdrawal agreement that would tie our hands in future negotiations, and got it; and extensions that go against commitments given by the Prime Minister, and got it. Can she give us any example of any EU demand that she has actually resisted?”

Mrs May retorted: “I could give plenty of examples, but I will give just two. We resisted a Northern Irelandonly customs territory in the backstop and made sure it is a Uk-wide territory. He says the EU demanded £39billion. It did not. It started off at £100billion, and our negotiations got it down.”

She gave as good as she got, but this was not a member of the Opposition she was arguing with. It was a member of the DUP, the party on which she relies for her flimsy working majority.

As pressure mounted on Mrs May it was reported that Boris Johnson met with Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, and her deputy Nigel Dodds for 40 minutes in to “pay homage” to the party propping up the Conservative government.

According to The Times, DUP chiefs held the talks with Mr Johnson and his

‘Can the Prime Minister give us any example of any EU demand that she has actually resisted?’

Tory leadership campaign. Mrs Foster on Wednesday refused to say if she had confidence in the prime minister.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, told Mrs May not to “waste” the six-month extension, and MPS were not short of suggestions for how it should be used.

Hilary Benn, the Labour MP, encouraged her to “decide to put her deal to the British people so they can decide whether they still wish to leave”.

David Jones, a former Brexit minister, had another idea: why not use it to persuade the EU to remove the Irish backstop from the Withdrawal Agreement? Predictably enough, Mrs May told him the EU had been clear the deal was “not open for renegotiation”.

As MPS prepared to leave for an 11day Easter break, there was one last row. The official document changing the date of Britain’s departure from the EU, called a statutory instrument, was laid in Parliament at 4.15pm, giving MPS little chance to mount a challenge.

Sir Bill Cash gamely tried his best, putting down a motion to annul the new date which was backed by 40 MPS. He accused the Government of “chicanery” in sneaking out the departure document at the very last minute.

Barely an hour after the statutory instrument had been laid, the Commons rose for the Easter recess, and Sir Bill’s challenge fell flat.