Tory row intensifies over plan for post-Brexit customs deal
Tensions within the government are growing ahead of the crunch Brexit cabinet meeting the Prime Minister is due to oversee at the end of the week, with plans for a customs deal riling Tory Brexiters who demand a clean break from the bloc.
Brexiters on the front and back benches have become increasingly suspicious over a compromise with the EU and a letter from a group of anti-EU Tory MPs showed their discontent as a number of red lines were drawn out in a crucial week for Theresa May as she looks to gain some sort of consensus over the UK’s negotiating stance with the EU before talks with Brussels during the summer.
Alarm on Tuesday came after Downing Street indicated it was pushing a new ‘third model’ plan for Britain’s post-Brexit customs relationship with the EU that would aim to keep both sides of the party content. The government decided to discard the previous two options - the new customs partnership and the maximum facilitation - that received intense criticism and caused rows between MPs and make a hybrid of the two.
Senior eurosceptic Tories confronted the PM in the Commons on Monday to angrily demand the PM deny rumours that the UK is to join the European Economic Area which to them is a form of “surrender” and goes against the concept of Brexit.
On Tuesday, a cabinet source told the Times the Brexiters felt the PM and her advisers were trying to “bounce” them into a soft of Brexits, though they had not been shown details of the compromise customs plan.
Meanwhile, senior EU officials who have seen a draft of Downing Street's proposal said that it is ‘unrealistic’ and the UK has no chance of changing the EU’s founding principles, said the Guardian on Monday.
Meanwhile, a letter from a group of bodies representing the law, accountancy, consultancy, architecture, surveying and advertising industries to May warned of dire consequences if the UK veers too far from the EU, calling for a list of requirements felt to be essential to preserve the £188bn business services industries and their 4.6m jobs.
“The UK needs to get the right deal on professional and other services given our relative strengths and current competitive position,” said the letter, which was signed by named individuals at firms including Accenture, EY, the Law Society, RIBA and the ICAEW.