New Cabinet fault line over length of transition

The length of the post-brexit transition period has become the latest issue to divide Prime Minister Theresa May’s Cabinet and party after one minister left the door open to extending the date when the UK finally leaves EU single market rules.

Currently, the implementation period is set to end in December 2020, but Business Secretary Greg Clark refused to rule out extending it.

Speaking to the Ridge on Sunday programme on Sky News from Dover, he said: “At all times we need to be guided by the evidence on this, speaking to the people that run this very successful port and the same with Eurotunnel, in order to make sure that we can continue the success, and that we don’t have frictions, there are things that would need to be put in place, computer systems for example, posts at the border, even if they checked, automatically, number plates. It seems to me that any reasonable person would have to be guided by the facts and the evidence.”

However, Commons leader Andrea Leadsom said: “I personally think it [December 2020] should be long enough. That’s my view. It’s fine as it is. We don’t need for any particular reason to extend it.”