Theresa May is gathering her Brexit ‘war Cabinet’ today as she braces for bruising trade talks with the EU.
The Prime Minister and key members of her team are hammering out a vision of what ‘end state’ they want to achieve.
The crucial session comes amid signs the Cabinet is lining up behind a ‘slow Brexit’ option – where the UK starts by keeping the same regulations as Brussels and gradually moves away.
The approach would ease the impact on the economy of cutting ties with the EU, and could satisfy both ‘hard’ Brexiteers like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove as well as supporters of keeping closer links such as Philip Hammond and Amber Rudd.
Meanwhile, some ministers are said to be urging Mrs May to stay on in Downing Street until 2021 to ensure any Brexit deal does not fall apart at the last moment.
Theresa May (pictured going to church with husband Philip yesterday) has gathered her Brexit ‘war Cabinet’ to hammer out a vision of what ‘end state’ they want to achieve
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson (left) has demanded a divergence in UK and EU rules, while Chancellor Philip Hammond (right) wants the systems to remain closely matched
New EU regulations could be rejected by the government as they arise after the end of a mooted two-year transition period, leaving Britain free to streamline rules and become more competitive globally.
However, the government could find it tough to get the EU to agree to such an arrangement.
The bloc’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier again insisted yesterday that there can be no ‘cherry picking’ of the UK’s current membership terms.
The meeting of the Brexit ‘war Cabinet’ – formally the European Union Exit and Trade sub-committee – will be followed by a discussion by the full Cabinet tomorrow.
In a dramatic reversal of fortunes, Cabinet ministers seem to be increasingly anxious at the prospect of Mrs May stepping aside in 2019 or 2020, as had been widely envisaged.
There are fears that an ensuing leadership contest would see candidates rip up a deal as they woo the Eurosceptic faction in the parliamentary party.
One senior minister told The Times: ‘(Mrs May) will have to stay on indefinitely, not least because the government will fall if she goes.’
Senior backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘She has to stay until Brexit is completed because obviously it would become the most heated part of any leadership contest.’
Mrs May will update MPs later today on the summit in Brussels last week that saw EU leaders finally sign off the start of trade talks.
The premier will tell the Commons that the UK will seek to sign trade deals with third countries during the transition period – although they would not come into force until 2021.
She will say that even though the UK is leaving the single market and customs union in March 2019 she wants ‘access to one another’s markets’ to continue ‘as now’ during an implementation period.
The EU’s guidelines say that during any transition period the UK would have to comply with the bloc’s trade policy – preventing it from striking its own deals with other countries.
But Mrs May will say the UK wants to sign agreements which would come into force after the ‘strictly time-limited’ period has ended.
‘We will prepare for our future independent trade policy by negotiating – and where possible signing – trade deals with third countries, which could come into force after the conclusion of the implementation period,’ she will say.
Mrs May and her senior ministers will also begin the process of thrashing out the Government’s plans for a post-Brexit UK-EU trade deal as Brussels indicated she may not get the ‘special partnership’ she wants.
The Prime Minister will say there is a ‘shared desire’ between the UK and EU for ‘rapid progress on an implementation period’ before any UK-EU deal comes fully into effect.
The EU’s negotiating position makes clear that the bloc expects the UK to observe all of its rules – including on freedom of movement – and accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) during this time.
Mrs May will say that ‘we would not be in the single market or the customs union, as we will have left the European Union’ but ‘we would propose that our access to one another’s markets would continue as now’.
Mrs May’s Cabinet (pictured together after the election) will finally begin talks today on what to seek in the trade talks phase of the Brexit negotiations