Gove ready to delay Brexit until next year

MICHAEL GOVE has told Cabinet colleagues he is prepared to delay Brexit until late 2020 rather than leave without a deal on Oct 31, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

The Environment Secretary told ministers that a no-deal Brexit in October risked triggering a general election that would put Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, in Downing Street.

His position puts him directly at odds with other Brexiteer Conservative leadership candidates, including Boris Johnson, who have committed to leaving on time with or without a deal.

Meanwhile, the US president, Donald Trump, said that Britain must be prepared to walk away from the EU without a deal.

The president is expected to meet Mr Johnson during his UK state visit this week after saying he would make an “excellent” Tory leader. He is also expected to meet Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party.

Mr Gove’s Brexit strategy, which he will announce this week, has already won the support of some Remainer Cabinet ministers, who believe he is “clear-eyed” about the risks of no deal.

A source close to Mr Gove confirmed he did not believe Britain could leave the EU without a deal by Oct 31. The source said: “Simply trying to go for no deal before the UK is properly prepared will lead to a general election with Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street and risks Brexit being cancelled altogether. These are the most complex negotiations in our peacetime history, it’s not enough to believe in Brexit, you’ve got to be able to deliver it.”

Amber Rudd, the Work and Pensions Secretary, is considering giving her support to Mr Gove after talks with Mr Johnson stalled over his support for no deal.

Ms Rudd and Mr Johnson met for drinks on Thursday evening to discuss whether she could support his leadership bid. She told him that she could not give him her support while he was willing to leave the EU without a deal on Oct 31.

Allies of Mr Johnson rejected claims that he had offered her a “very senior role” in exchange for her support. They said that there were concerns within his team that her endorsement could prove to be “counterproductive”.

Ms Rudd and other “One Nation” Tories are now giving serious consideration to supporting Mr Gove, whom Ms Rudd met for coffee on Tuesday.

One Cabinet minister told The Telegraph that the group were planning to support Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, in the first round and switch to Mr Gove later in the contest.

The minister added: “It’s important that there’s a good showing in the first round for those like Matt who are taking the most pragmatic view and those who have set out most honestly the consequences of no deal.

“As the process goes on Michael Gove becomes the compromise candidate. You will see people falling behind Michael Gove. He is capable and he is clear-eyed about the choices open to us.”

Another minister said Mr Gove had made clear that an extension to Article

50 might be needed to ensure preparations were in place for a managed no deal. Discussions are said to have centred on a year-long extension.

“There are a lot of practical difficulties with leaving without a deal on Oct 31,” another minister said. “At the end of the day Boris’s offer is that he might have some magic rabbits. That’s still quite a powerful offer with a lot of people. He might be capable of pulling a rabbit out of a hat – without being clear what that rabbit is or what that hat is.”

Mr Gove’s priority is to push for a deal by October 31 so Britain can leave the EU. But his intervention makes him the first Brexiteer leadership candidate to say that Britain cannot leave without a deal in October.

Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Matt Hancock and Rory Stewart have warned that MPs will stop no deal and could trigger a general election by voting against the Government.

In a dividing line that is likely to define the Tory leadership race, other Eurosceptic candidates including Mr Johnson, Dominic Raab, Andrea Leadsom and Esther McVey have committed to leaving by Oct 31 with or without a deal. One Cabinet minister said they believed that there would be a repeat of the “Tory psychodrama” of 2016 – when Mr Gove mounted a coup against Mr Johnson in the wake of the EU referendum, ending his leadership campaign – as Mr Johnson and Mr Gove are likely to make up the final two of the leadership contest.

Mrs Leadsom said that Parliament could not stop Britain leaving without a deal. “It simply isn’t true that Parliament can easily stop us leaving,” she said. “Revoking, extending, forcing a second referendum – these are not foregone conclusions. A prime minister committed to Brexit will be in a strong position to stop such moves.”

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, and Priti Patel, the former international development secretary, today say that Cabinet ministers such as Mr Gove and Mr Hunt must bear responsibility for the “terrible collapse” of the Conservative Party in the European elections.

“As Theresa May brought back her Withdrawal Bill, which included a commitment to a second referendum these Cabinet members did nothing and sealed our fate at the Euros,” they say. “In staying in Cabinet and failing to stop the referendum sell-out, they must shoulder much of the blame for our terrible collapse.”

Leadership candidates will this week attend the hustings of the One Nation group of 60 Tory MPs opposed to a no-deal Brexit. They have selected Katy Balls, a Spectator journalist, and Matt Forde, a comedian and ex-Labour member, to interview the candidates.

‘[Boris] might be capable of pulling a rabbit out of a hat without being clear what the rabbit is or what the hat is’