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Courtesy of the Times.
Downing Street has rejected plans to have EU officials at British ports forwarding goods to Ireland, in the latest sign of an impasse on customs. A Brexit deal with Brussels can be struck in less than two months’ time, Michel Barnier, Europe’s chief negotiator said yesterday, as Theresa May sent her ministers on a final drive to sell Chequers to her divided party. However differences still remain on key issues, particularly connected to customs and Northern Ireland. Britain insists that its customs plan removes the need for any checks at all but the EU has rejected the so-called future customs arrangement.
A Downing Street spokesman said: “We believe the solution that we set out in the white paper and at Chequers delivers on the issue of the Northern Ireland border. As the PM has said many times, she is a committed unionist; that’s a key fact in where we’ve ended up.” This comes before an announcement by Brexiteers led by Jacob Rees-Mogg that they could support the move. Yesterday there was optimism on both sides of the Channel when Mr Barnier said that a withdrawal deal was “possible” within six to eight weeks, causing a surge in the pound’s value. With claims yesterday, however, that up to 80 Tory MPs would be prepared to vote down a deal based on the Chequers agreement, Downing Street is to begin a concerted drive to reduce opposition.
The prime minister has instructed every cabinet minister to tour the country before the Conservative Party conference this month to hammer home the message that Chequers is the “only deal” on the table. Each minister has been told to visit at least two constituency associations in the next two weeks to make the case for Mrs May’s strategy and counter the campaign led by Boris Johnson to “chuck Chequers”. Privately, Tory aides working across Whitehall have been briefed by No 10 that Mr Barnier’s position on Chequers has shifted in recent weeks. They have been told to prepare for a vote on a final deal by Christmas, with senior government figures reporting that Tory whips were “very confident” the vote would pass. However, with Mrs May’s working majority standing at 13 and Labour expected to oppose the deal, Brexiteers could scupper the plans.
A Downing Street source said last night that a deal was “eminently doable”, adding that there was a growing realisation in Europe that the negotiations could not be allowed to collapse. “I think there is an acknowledgment on both sides that we have to do a deal,” the source said. “It is not in anyone’s interest for the negotiations to fail and I think that is beginning to concentrate minds.” Another government figure also suggested that some small progress had been made on the most difficult issue of the Northern Ireland border. Mrs May is due to make her case to the EU’s 27 leaders at a summit in Salzburg next Thursday. Afterwards they are expected formally to change the EU’s negotiating mandate to “take account” of Britain’s new proposals. Speaking at a conference in Slovenia before the meeting, Mr Barnier provided an upbeat assessment of the state of negotiations. “I think that if we are realistic we are able to reach an agreement on the first stage of the negotiation, which is the Brexit treaty, within six or eight weeks,” he said.