MICHEL Barnier privately told a delegation of MPs to Brussels that Theresa May’s plan for a future trade deal was “dead” as the row over the Chequers compromise continued to grip Westminster.
Labour’s Stephen Kinnock, a member of the Commons Brexit Committee delegation, which had talks with the EU’s chief negotiator last week, claimed he made it "crystal clear" to them that the Prime Minister proposals were unacceptable
During exchanges with Dominic Raab, the Brexit Secretary, Mr Kinnock, an anti-Brexit campaigner, insisted Brussels had spiked the UK Government’s plans.
"I can tell you absolutely, unequivocally, without a shadow of a doubt that Chequers is dead in the water. Mr Barnier made it crystal clear that Chequer's is completely unacceptable to the European Union."
Mr Raab asked: "Can I just check; he said: 'Dead in the water?’"
Mr Kinnock, who represents Aberavon, replied: "Les propositions sont mortes," to which the minister said: "OK."
His Tory colleague, David Jones, the former Brexit minister, questioned the Secretary of State on why he was "flogging this dead horse?".
The Brexiteer told Mr Raab: "You admitted that your focus is on trying to deliver an agreement along the lines of Chequers. We know from Mr Kinnock that Mr Barnier thinks that Chequers is 'mort dans l'eau'.
"We know that several members of the Conservative Party, the parliamentary Conservative Party - from both Remain and Leave tendencies - think that Chequers is dead in the water. Why are you flogging this dead horse?"
Mr Raab, as he did the day before in the Commons chamber, struck a defiant pose, saying: "This is a negotiation with the EU so you are going to hear noises from various sides that are critical; that is an inherent part of a sensitive, contentious negotiation like this. But you should be in no doubt that we are making good progress."
At the session of the Commons European Scrutiny Committee, Olly Robbins, Mrs May's Europe adviser, rejected suggestions that he should tell her to put the Chequers Plan "out of its misery," and insisted the proposals were a "credible, sensible" offer.
Earlier, during Prime Minister’s Questions, the first since MPs returned from their summer break, the SNP’s Ian Blackford branded Mrs May’s Chequers Plan "as dead as a dodo”.
The Highland MP, claiming it was now more unpopular than the poll tax, asked the PM: “Why is she gambling with the future of Scotland by taking us out of the EU against our will with her disastrous Chequers Plan?"
Mrs May hit back, saying: "The only people gambling with Scotland's future are the SNP, who want to take Scotland out of the UK."
In other developments:
*Lord King, the former Bank of England Governor, slammed the Government’s Brexit preparations as "incompetent";
*sterling jumped following reports that Britain and Germany were preparing to drop key Brexit demands but fell back when both governments denied their positions had changed;
*ardent Brexiteer Boris Johnson, the former Foreign Secretary, is to address a 1,000-strong “Chuck Chequers” rally at the forthcoming Tory conference in Birmingham;
*pro-Brexiteers are drawing up their own alternative Brexit plan with a Canada-style trade deal at its heart;
*the European Commission has told officials from the EU27 not to attend a series of technical Whitehall Brexit briefings, fearing they are a crude UK Government attempt to divide and rule and
*Labour’s Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor, said social unrest on the streets could be a price worth paying to prevent the "nightmare scenario" of a no-deal Brexit.
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