DOWNING Street has insisted that UK ministers are “working together as a team” after Jeremy Hunt told Boris Johnson to “belt up” over Brexit for fear he was helping the Brussels cause in UK-EU talks.
But First Minister Nicola Sturgeon branded the Cabinet row over future customs arrangements an “absurdity,” which strengthened the argument for the UK staying in the single market and customs union.
And her SNP colleague Ian Blackford, who leads the party at Westminster, urged Theresa May to “override her hard Brexit wing – and after two years of endless desperate confusion – make a decision” on the country’s future trading arrangements and back staying in the customs union.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon insists Brexit process has strengthened case for Scottish independence
As senior UK ministers continued to examine in detail the Conservative Government’s two options on future customs arrangements – the customs partnership and maximum facilitation or “max-fax” – tensions once again spilled over in public.
After the Foreign Secretary last week branded Theresa May’s preferred customs partnership option “crazy” and his Cabinet colleague and fellow Brexiteer Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, said the plan had “flaws,” the Health Secretary urged his colleagues to express their views not in public but behind the Cabinet door.
"I do think that it is important that we have these debates in private. Not just because of collective responsibility, which is what democracy depends on, but also because this is a negotiation. On the EU side, if they see divisions in the open, they will exploit that," declared the UK Government’s Health and Social Care Secretary.
Mr Hunt said Mr Johnson had a very important role to play in the Government and that it “doing what he wants” in terms of Brexit.
"But we have to recognise that we are not the only people who read the papers in Britain and we need to give Theresa May some space. If we are going to have these lively debates, we should have them in private because that will strengthen Theresa May's negotiating hand," explained the Health Secretary.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon insists Brexit process has strengthened case for Scottish independence
Asked if his message to Mr Johnson was to "belt up", Mr Hunt replied: "You could say that. I'd say he is a marvellous foreign secretary but let's work as a team."
Asked if the open Cabinet divisions were hampering the Government’s bid to choose one of the options, No 10 said Mr Hunt had said it was “important the Government worked together as a team on delivering on Brexit and that is what the Government is doing”.
Asked again about the Health Secretary slapping down his Cabinet colleague, the PM’s spokesman insisted the Government was working to “refine” the two Brexit options on future custom arrangements with the EU and “that is what we are focused on”.
Senior ministers met in two groups on Monday to try to iron out problems with the two options before they were due to be discussion on Tuesday at the special Brexit sub-committee, dubbed the War Cabinet.
Sources suggested that a final decision would not be made today but time is beginning to run as Brussels wants to know the UK’s position on future customs arrangement by the time of the European Council in June.
Mrs May spent much of yesterday holding a series of meetings with Tory MPs to discuss the two options. When asked about them and their purpose, her spokesman simply said she met Tory MPs “all the time”.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon insists Brexit process has strengthened case for Scottish independence
One Tory backbencher said there was a slide presentation with Gavin Barwell, the PM's chief of staff, going through the pros and cons of each option.
Meanwhile, Mr Johnson was asked whether or not his differences with Mrs May over post-Brexit customs arrangements were now so deep that he should resign.
He responded by saying he believed the PM's position as set out in an article for the Sunday Times, promising to come out of the customs union to enable frictionless trade with no hard Irish border and enable Britain to make its own trade deals across the globe was "the right one".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel