UK Government ministers and their Labour counterparts are due to meet in Whitehall today for what could prove to be “make or break” talks on seeking a Brexit compromise.
After six weeks of intense negotiations, the focus now seems to be on Theresa May preparing to offer Labour a temporary customs arrangement, lasting until the next General Election in 2022 when the two parties could then campaign for their own separate visions of Brexit beyond that point.
The Tories’ official position has been for a customs arrangement that would allow the UK to strike its own trade deals in the future while Labour’s is for a permanent customs union, allowing it a “say” in how the EU negotiates future trade deals.
Nadhim Zahawi, the UK Government’s Education Minister, said: “If Labour believe it would rather go to the next General Election in 2022, for example, then it’s still a temporary customs arrangement and then whoever is leader of the Conservative leader can lay out their stall as to the next instalment of negotiation.”
Other potential key offers the Prime Minister is thought to be prepared to make is matching EU employment rights in the future and the UK aligning itself with the EU on single market regulations for goods.
But Labour’s public comments in the last 72 hours have cast serious doubt about whether Jeremy Corbyn and his colleagues are minded to seal a last-ditch deal with the Tories.
Over the weekend, John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor, said he no longer trusted Mrs May after key details of the final stage of the talks were leaked to the Press. He openly accused her of having “jeopardised the talks for her own personal protection”.
His colleague Tom Watson, the deputy Labour leader, cautioned about giving “false hope on this; it’s going to be very difficult to find a negotiated settlement”.
One Lab source said of the proposed temporary customs arrangement: “It feels like an extended transition with the intention of ensuring we leave the customs union after the General Election. I don’t think it works.”
Any compromise will lead to a split in both the main parties.
It has been claimed a majority of Labour MPs would not back a compromise deal unless it was subject to a confirmatory public vote. At the weekend more than 100 opposition MPs, largely from Labour, wrote to Mrs May and Mr Corbyn warning them they would refuse to support a “Westminster stitch-up”.
Stephen Gethins, the SNP’s Europe spokesman, said: “It would be unforgivable if any backroom deal bypassed the public through a second EU referendum and instead simply consigned Scotland to a cliff-edge and catastrophic Brexit outcome.”
But Labour’s Caroline Flint, who represents Don Valley in South Yorkshire, argued: "If a deal is struck in which Labour achieves many of its goals in that deal, that it takes us up to the General Election in which all parties will be able to then set out their stall, then that is a deal worth pursuing.”
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On the Conservative side, Sir Graham Brady, who chairs the 1922 Tory backbench committee, warned at the weekend that the price of agreeing to a customs union could be a “catastrophic split in the Conservative party and, at a time when the Opposition is led by dangerous extremists, the consequences for our country would be unthinkable”.
The Cheshire MP is due to meet Mrs May today to ask her to set out a clear road-map for her departure; possibly even a date.
His colleague, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Treasurer of the 1922, said: "We are now having to face the prospect of European elections, which none of us wanted to face; they are going to happen.
"And, I would have thought that fairly soon after that would be time for her to think about setting a schedule to find her successor. That is regardless of whether there is a deal on offer or not. We should move on as Conservatives," he added.
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