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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

May says she will not agree Brexit deal 'at any cost' as No 10 hints cabinet decision imminent - as it happened

Theresa May with Jeremy Corbyn and his wife Laura Alvarez (right) at the service this afternoon for MPs and peer in St Margaret’s church in Westminster to honour parliamentarians who gave their lives during the First World War.
Theresa May with Jeremy Corbyn and his wife Laura Alvarez (right) at the service this afternoon for MPs and peer in St Margaret’s church in Westminster to honour parliamentarians who gave their lives during the First World War. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

Afternoon summary

  • Theresa May has edged her cabinet closer to a Brexit deal after a chairing a meeting where ministers discussed a compromise plan for the Irish backstop. According to some reports, Geoffrey Cox, the leave-voting attorney general who is trusted by Brexiters to vet any deal for acceptability, gave tentative backing to a plan for the UK as a whole to remain in a customs union as a backstop, with withdrawal only by mutual agreement. The cabinet meeting did not decide anything, but there were no walk-outs, and ministers were told they may be summoned to another meeting very soon where they may be asked to endorse a plan. The EU would still have to agree, but Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said today that what was holding up progress was the UK government’s failure so far to make choices. (See 3.32pm.) The cabinet meeting finished around five hours ago but since then the hardcore Tory Brexiters have been largely silent - which may indicate that they are currently undecided as to how to respond to developments.
  • Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, has expressed enthusiasm for May’s proposal for a review clause in the Brexit deal over the Irish border saying it could be to Ireland’s “advantage”. (See 3.23pm.)
  • John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has signalled that Labour will not vote for a Brexit deal that would keep the UK in the customs union temporarily as a backstop measure after the transition. (See 9.15am.)
  • Nick Hurd, the policing minister, has been criticised for telling MPs that the police exaggerate the impact of spending cuts. When it was put to him by the Lib Dem MP Ed Davey that police chiefs saying tackling the deficit in their pension funds could cost up to 10,000 police officer jobs, Hurd replied:

I think the number is exaggerated, which is not unusual for the police.

In response, Davey said:

Police chiefs are warning of huge further cuts to police numbers, and the Conservatives’ response is simply to accuse them of exaggerating. It’s deeply alarming.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

Northern Ireland hauliers will not have to get special permit to travel to Republic of Ireland in the event of no deal, it has emerged.

Originally, it was envisaged that only 60 permits would be available to freight vehicles in the region, creating the prospect of chaos after 29 March if the UK crashes out of the EU.

More than 4,000 commercial vehicles cross the border every day, according to the Freight Transport Association.

“While the FTA welcomes this special status for businesses in Northern Ireland – it will help maintain vital cross border, all-island supply chains in the event of a no-deal Brexit – the ideal scenario would be a UK-wide application,” said Seamus Leheny, director of police for Northern Ireland at the FTA.

In a no deal scenario Britain faces major threats to business and complex supply changes, however, with just 1,224 special permits available for Britain under its new status as a third country.

The Telegraph’s Peter Foster and RTE’s Tony Connelly have both posted useful Twitter threads about the state of play in the Brexit talks. They start here.

Fourteen British MEPs have written to fellow members of the European parliament asking them to be ready to back calls for an extension of article 50 to avert the risk of a no deal Brexit, the Telegraph’s James Crisp reports. Most of the 14 are Labour MEPs, but the list includes two Green MEPs, one SNP MEP, one Plaid Cymru SNP, one Lib Dem MEP and one Conservative (Charles Tannock).

'We are not there yet,' says Barnier

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has now tweeted about Brexit.

The anti-Brexit group Best for Britain has put out this comment about today’s cabinet from one of its supporters, the Lib Dem MP Layla Moran. She said:

Theresa May’s cabinet met for almost three hours this morning to discuss Brexit but not a single decision was made. The can was kicked again down the road and another working group was created to try and get the government out of the bind they are in.

Dominic Grieve, the Conservative former attorney general and a leading pro-European in the party, told BBC News a few minutes ago that he did not see how the EU could agree an Irish backstop that would allow the UK to unilaterally pull out. The UK would only be about to withdraw by mutual agreement, he said. And he claimed that showed why Brexit was flawed and why a second referendum was needed. He told the programme:

We are leaving the EU, but we are going to place ourselves in a relationship with the EU where we lose all influence over decision making, and are likely to be subservient to the EU in critical areas about the nature of our future trading relationship with them, or for that matter the nature of the relationship that Northern Ireland has with them.

It really reinforces for me why we should have a people’s vote. What is going to end up being offered to the British public, and the government is going to seek to carry through parliament, is something markedly different from what was being discussed in 2016.

Dominic Grieve
Dominic Grieve Photograph: BBC News

Here is my colleague Pippa Crerar’s story about today’s Brexit developments at cabinet.

And this is from the Telegraph’s Steven Swinford.

This is from the Daily Mail’s political editor, Jason Groves.

Barnier says UK has to make choices before Brexit deal will be possible

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has been speaking at a press conference with the Slovakian PM, the Sun’s Nick Gutteridge reports.

Here is the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on today’s cabinet.

Varadkar says including 'review clause' in Irish backstop could have advantages

Ireland’s prime minister Leo Varadkar has expressed enthusiasm for Theresa May’s proposal for a review clause in the Brexit deal over the Irish border saying it could be to Ireland’s “advantage”.

The taoiseach told Irish parliament he had not yet seen any wording on the review mechanism proposals but warned it would only work if it sat alongside an open-ended backstop deal.

Dashing Brexiter hopes that he might be backsliding on the need for a guarantee over the border, he told the Dail it would “not be worth the paper its written on” if it included either an expiry date or a unilateral exit clause, something the hard Brexiters are insisting on.

But Varadkar dispatched criticism from Sinn Fein that a review clause was a watering down of the backstop, declaring it could be the “creative” idea needed to break the logjam in Brexit talks and that it may even work in Ireland’s favour. During questions he told MPs:

A review clause would have to be negotiated; we have yet to see proposals from the UK as to what it would look like but if we do have a backstop, if it is used, if it does apply and potentially last into perpetuity it may be to our advantage or necessary at various points in time to have a review.

A review is very different to an exit clause and we cannot accept an exit clause that would unilaterally allow the UK to resile from the backstop, nor could we accept an expiry date.

The Spectator’s James Forsyth has written a very good blog with new information abotu what happened at cabinet. Do read the whole thing here, but here’s an excerpt.

Penny Mordaunt argued that Brexit was like a plane journey and that people wanted to hear from the pilot at the beginning and the end of the journey and they got worried if they heard from the pilot mid-flight to say that they weren’t going to land when they were expected to. To which, David Mundell— the Scottish secretary — shot back that the passengers would be equally alarmed if they heard that the pilot couldn’t land the plane. To which, Michael Gove — a famously nervous flier — remarked that he always found a gin and tonic helped if that happened. I suspect that all the cabinet might be in need of a drink before the week is out.

Theresa May laying a wreath this afternoon during the Service of Remembrance for MPs and peers in St Margaret’s church in Westminster, London, to remember the sacrifices of parliamentarians, parliamentary officers and staff who gave their lives during the First World War.
Theresa May laying a wreath this afternoon during the Service of Remembrance for MPs and peers in St Margaret’s church in Westminster, London, to remember the sacrifices of parliamentarians, parliamentary officers and staff who gave their lives during the first world war. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

Barnier says UK and EU not close to reaching Brexit agreement

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, told the Belgian broadcaster RTBF this morning that the UK and the EU were not close to a deal. He said:

For now, we are still negotiating and I am not, as I am speaking to you this morning, able to tell you that we are close to reaching an agreement.

Michel Barnier at the Bozar music centre in Brussels yesterday.
Michel Barnier at the Bozar music centre in Brussels yesterday. Photograph: Francisco Seco/AP

The People’s Vote campaign, which wants a second referendum, says the UK is heading for a “miserable Brexit”. It has put out this statement about the cabinet meeting from Anna Soubry, the pro-European Tory. She said:

Today has seen the start of another effort to force the cabinet and parliament to accept a so-called Brexit deal that resolves nothing about our future but promises only extra costs, further uncertainty and less say in the rules governing how we run our economy.

Deal or no deal, it’s becoming clearer by the day that the UK is headed for a miserable Brexit. This has turned into a mess that nobody voted for and it’s only going to get worse.

Varadkar accused by Sinn Fein of watering down his stance on Irish backstop

In Dublin Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach, is taking questions in the Dail. My colleague Lisa O’Carroll has the highlights.

Mary Lou McDonald is the Sinn Fein leader.

Here is Robert Peston’s take on cabinet.

Gary Gibbon, Channel 4 News’ political editor, has a written a good post about today’s Brexit cabinet on his blog. Here’s an excerpt, but do read the whole thing.

Ministers who spoke out with caveats about where things were heading – Sajid Javid amongst them – emphasised how not having a unilateral break clause in the temporary customs arrangement risked endangering the chances of getting the vote past Tory MPs. One minister listening thought that augured well for the PM potentially getting a deal through Cabinet as soon as early next week – better to have Ministers saying others might not like the deal taking shape rather than objecting themselves. “The mood music was better,” one Minister said. Theresa May closed the meeting with a suggestion that ministers keep their diaries handy.

This is from HuffPost’s Paul Waugh.

There is quite a lot of post-cabinet briefing going on at the moment, much of it on background (from sources who don’t want to be identified). Here are some more highlights.

From my colleague Dan Sabbagh

From my colleague Pippa Crerar

From the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn

Another source that cabinet ministers were given the impression that they could be summoned back to Number 10 for another meeting on Thursday, or possibly Friday, where they will be asked to agree the terms of the withdrawal agreement.

The source also says that Geoffrey Cox, the leave-supporting attorney general who’s trusted by Brexiters to adjudicate on whether or not the deal is satisfactory, made an important intervention at cabinet in favour of the prime minister. Much of the discussion on the backstop focused on the mechanism that would determine how the UK would leave, and Cox discussed the relative merits of a unilateral approach (the UK being able to walk out on its own) or a mutual approach (the UK only being able to leave by mutual consent). According to the source, Cox made the point that a unilateral approach provided firmer guarantees in strict legal terms. But he also argued that there were risks on both sides, and that, once you took into account political factors (principally, the likelihood of a mutual approach facilitating an agreement and an early vote, and minimising the chances of a no deal Brexit), he reportedly came down in favour of the mutual option.

Geoffrey Cox leaving Number 10 after today’s cabinet.
Geoffrey Cox leaving Number 10 after today’s cabinet. Photograph: Mark Thomas/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

May says she will not agree Brexit deal 'at any cost' as No 10 hints cabinet decision imminent

I’m back from the Downing Street lobby briefing. This is what the prime minister’s spokesman said about today’s cabinet.

[The PM] said that while 95% of the withdrawal agreement had been concluded, on the Northern Ireland backstop there are a number of issues that we still need to work through and these are the most difficult. This includes ensuring that, if the backstop is ever needed, it is not permanent and there’s a mechanism to ensure that the UK could not be held in the arrangement indefinitely.

The prime minister said she was confident of reaching a deal. She said that while the UK should aim to conclude the withdrawal agreement as soon as possible, this would “not be done at any cost”.

The prime minister said that, once agreement was reached on the withdrawal agreement, it would remain the case that nothing is agreed until everything agreed and it will be subject to securing an acceptable full future framework.

And here are the main points that emerged.

  • May told the cabinet she would not agree a deal “at any cost”, her spokesman said.
  • A further cabinet meeting will be held before the UK agrees a deal with the EU, the spokesman said. This would happen “at the appropriate moment”, he said, implying it could happen later this week. (Another cabinet is scheduled for next Tuesday, and so No 10 would only be talking about one happening at an “appropriate moment” if it meant before then.)
  • No 10 hinted that the text of the withdrawal agreement could be released before MPs see the political declaration setting out the future trade relationship (“the full future framework”). It had been assumed that the two documents would be released at the same time, but No 10 would not confirm that, implying that the “future framework” could be come shortly afterwards.
  • The spokesman said that there was still “a lot of work to do” before there could be a deal.
  • He said that, on the Irish backstop, the government was working to ensure that there was a mechanism to ensure that the UK was not held in it indefinitely. He would not be drawn on whether that meant the UK would have to have the right to withdraw unilaterally.

UPDATE: When No 10 talks about the deal being subject to “securing an acceptable full future framework”, it is referring to the political declaration giving details of the future framework. The framework itself, the future trade deal, won’t be negotiated until after Brexit, perhaps some years after Brexit.

10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Updated

And here are two columns on Brexit from the Irish papers that are worth reading.

Up to now Ireland has enjoyed unprecedented solidarity. Some of that is genuine, some of it is based on the EU’s inherent goal of protecting peace and some of it is stems from a desire to punish the UK.

Within a few years though, that sense of camaraderie is likely to have diminished. Angela Merkel told the Taoiseach as much at a recent dinner in Salzburg.

Ireland will be fighting the bigger powers on issues such as tax harmonisation and environmental directives.

With memories of the Brexit pain fading, would the next batch of EU prime ministers still allow Irish red lines turn pink if they stood in the way of a wider trade deal with the UK? These are the questions that have to be considered now.

Ireland is going to get what it wants and needs: no hard border and, in effect, the softest available Brexit.

The British will get, in return, a declaration that if it can solve the Irish problem it can have its Canada-style trade deal – which is like saying that May can win Strictly as soon as she learns to dance.

But we must button our lips and look glum. The British are still going on about Dunkirk – a retreat reimagined as a glorious victory. It is crucially important that May is allowed her Dunkirk moment.

And to do that she must be allowed to talk up her success in getting all the great things that will follow if the Irish problem is ever solved. Don’t say: good luck with that. Do say: oh, what lovely seashells!

I’m off to the lobby briefing now.

I will post again after 1pm.

The Downing Street lobby briefing is now scheduled for 12.30pm because today’s cabinet has lasted longer than usual.

Before we hear the Number 10 account of what happened, here are some of the most interesting Brexit articles from today’s other papers written ahead of the meeting. You can find all the Guardian’s Brexit articles here.

Stories

Senior Cabinet ministers will today tell Theresa May she must “stare down” the EU over the Irish border or see Parliament rip up her Brexit deal.

Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt will lead as many as 12 Cabinet ministers in the defiant stand at the Cabinet’s weekly meeting in No10 ...

The Sun has also been told that Chief Whip Julian Smith has told No10 they can only rely on around 15 Labour MPs to vote for Mrs May’s softer Brexit deal – far short of the 40 or so that some have claimed.

One Cabinet minister told The Sun: “We must have control of the backstop. If Theresa doesn’t stare down the EU and win a mechanism that does this, the whole argument is immaterial as there is zero chance of passing the Commons.

Theresa May faces a Cabinet showdown with Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab after he privately accused Downing Street of undermining his attempts to solve the Irish border problem.

Mr Raab’s office was forced to deny rumours that he was considering resigning after he wrote to the Prime Minister urging a change of tack in the Brexit negotiations.

Mr Raab is understood to be furious that David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister and Mrs May’s de facto deputy, visited Dublin last week where he rubbished a new proposal that had been put to the Irish by Mr Raab just three days earlier.

The Telegraph has learnt that Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, also aired his own views on the Irish backstop with Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, before Mr Lidington’s intervention, which will add to the tension in Tuesday’s Brexit-focused Cabinet meeting.

The prime minister is expected to warn her cabinet that time is running out to agree a deal and that the government will soon have to tell businesses to start spending money on planning for a disorderly no-deal exit.

She is set to tell her pro-Brexit ministers they will have to cede ground to get a deal, after Mr Varadkar said the UK would not be allowed to unilaterally walk away from a backstop deal to avoid a hard border in Ireland.

Mrs May’s aides admitted that hopes of a Brexit breakthrough by mid-November had faded. They said Britain was aiming for a special European Council meeting before the end of the month to sign off the country’s exit terms.

“She’s going to try to roll the cabinet,” said one Eurosceptic Conservative official. Ministers say they expect Mrs May to use the cabinet to pave the way for a final push in Brussels to secure a deal.

Brussels is preparing to back a compromise proposal on Ireland to resolve the last big sticking point in the Brexit negotiations.

Senior EU figures have indicated that they are prepared to offer Theresa May an “independent mechanism” by which Britain could end a temporary customs arrangement with the bloc ...

The EU and Britain have broadly agreed the “governance” of relations after Brexit with the creation of a joint committee and independent arbitration panel to settle disputes. This could become the basis for deciding when the customs arrangement could end.

“As well as disputes, structures could be used to review the relationship and adapt it to changing circumstances, including as the future trading relationship makes the Irish backstop measure irrelevant,” a Whitehall source said.

Editorials

Being locked in a customs union, so central to the whole EU project, is not some minor detail. It destroys Brexit’s economic case. That’s why Tory MPs voted overwhelmingly against it.

So Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab is right to warn the PM today that she MUST stare down the EU or face ruin.

We must have the power to exit any “temporary” customs union or “Irish backstop” when WE alone decide.

  • But the Daily Mail in its editorial does not mention the backstop, and just says that “self-indulgent squabbling is causing deep unease” and that May and the cabinet must agree a deal.

Comment

Perhaps we should step back from the bloviated rhetoric. Humiliation is too strong; a national humbling is more accurate. The philosophy of Brexit was that, freed of EU constraints, the UK would take its rightful place in the world. This is indeed what is happening, but alas that place is not as the great power of their imagination. The UK’s place in the world is hardly terrible but, as Mr Johnson learnt during his brief but undistinguished term as foreign secretary, our emissaries no longer bestride summits like Castlereagh.

For far too long British politicians, journalists and voters have enjoyed a patently distorted vision of the nation as indispensable world player. Now the nation is facing the painful truth that the UK is not as pre-eminent as it has liked to believe.

For proof, look at the negotiations over the Irish border. One need not get into the rights and wrongs to see that the UK has essentially been pushed around by Ireland, because the EU has thrown its weight behind the demands of its continuing member. The hard fact is that the power imbalance has meant the UK is being forced to choose between the chaos of a no-deal Brexit or undermining the constitutional integrity of one of its four sovereign parts and signing up to a significant amount of rule-taking. This is what happens when a single country that is not America or China negotiates with a global trading bloc.

Two hours in, today’s cabinet meeting is still carrying on.

The House of Lords commission has announced that it is setting up its own inquiry into bullying and harassment at the Lords end of the building. It will be independently run. In a press notice the Lords says:

While the exact terms of reference for the review will be set by the external members of the commission, it is anticipated they will reflect those of Dame Laura Cox’s inquiry into bullying and harassment of Commons service staff, and the second Commons inquiry that is expected to be launched shortly covering the rest of the Commons community.

There are two urgent questions in the Commons later.

Turning back to the subject of how Labour might vote on the final Brexit deal, the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush has this very revealing anecdote in a recent column.

True, there are issues on which the leadership’s main players are genuinely divided, such as how to tackle the final Brexit vote. At a recent strategy meeting, Andrew Murray – who works part-time as Len McCluskey’s chief of staff and part-time in Corbyn’s office – argued that the Labour party should vote for Theresa May’s deal to avoid a no-deal exit. At that point, [Diane] Abbott intervened to disagree. She argued that the party’s pro-European membership would never forgive them for bailing out a weak Tory government and that May’s Brexit agreement would in any case be a disaster that Labour should not be seen to endorse.

Then she warned her old friend [Jeremy] Corbyn that their pro-Remain constituents in the north-east of London would be “protesting outside your house” if Labour voted for May’s deal. “That last point really spooked him,” recalls one of the attending staffers.

'Looks like we're heading for no deal,' says DUP chief whip

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP’s chief whip, claims we’re heading for a no deal Brexit. He has posted this on Twitter.

Donaldson’s comment was prompted by this tweet from Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister and deputy prime minister, from yesterday morning.

It is hard to know whether ‘we’re heading for no deal’ is Donaldson’s considered assessment of the state of play, or whether he is talking up the chances of a no deal primarily in the hope of putting pressure on the Irish. We’re going to see a lot of that over the next few days and weeks. Ultimately Brexit is going to turn into a game of chicken, with the fear of no deal Brexit being deployed in the hope that one side will capitulate.

Leave.EU, the campaign group founded by Arron Banks, and Eldon Insurance, Banks’s insurance company, face fines totalling £135,000 over breaches of data laws, a report from the information commissioner Elizabeth Denham has confirmed.

My colleagues Alex Hern and David Pegg are covering this story, and Denham’s evidence to the culture committee, on a separate live blog.

Varadkar under pressure in Dail over willingness to offer UK backstop 'review mechanism'

Ireland’s prime minister Leo Varadkar is expected to face criticism in the Dail today amid opposition party fears that he may be backtracking on the Irish border “backstop”.

Fianna Fail, which is in a confidence and supply agreement with Varadkar’s Fine Gael government has claimed that his willingness to offer Theresa May a “review mechanism” will amount to a watering down of the agreement the EU struck with the UK last December and again in March over Ireland.

The party’s Brexit spokeswoman described it as a “potentially hazardous direction”. Lisa Chambers told the Irish Independent she is “very worried the backstop is not as watertight as has been previously indicated”.

All Irish opposition parties including Labour and Sinn Fein have been unified on the government’s Brexit strategy and this latest twist underlines the political consequences for the taoiseach if he falters in the final stages.

The Irish cabinet meets at 10am this morning with an oral update on Brexit expected from Varadkar and the deputy prime minister Simon Coveney, who has chief responsibility for Brexit.

They will face questions in the Dail this afternoon from opposition parties.

Leo Varadkar speaking in the Dail.
Leo Varadkar speaking in the Dail. Photograph: Dail/PA

Updated

McDonnell says he is determined to avoid the mistakes Labour made on tax in 1992

In his Newsnight interview John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, also had two other interesting things to say.

  • McDonnell said he was determined to avoid the mistake Labour made in 1992, when its plans for tax increases became an electoral liability, and that this was why the party did not vote against the budget tax cuts last week. In his most detailed explanation yet as to why the party did not vote against the tax cuts, which will predominantly benefit higher earners, McDonnell replied:

On the tax cuts it was outrageous Philip Hammond brought those forward whilst he’s cutting benefits at the same time, absolutely outrageous. But, there’s a thing about politics; when you see your opponent digging a hole in front of you, putting the spikes into that hole, covering it with leaves and inviting you to step into it, sometimes you want to walk around it.

Then, when it was put to him that he was influenced by the experience of the 1992 general election, when he stood in Hayes and Harlington but lost by 53, he agreed. He explained:

The experience of 1992 is seared into me, of course it was. This is a working class, multicultural community. I’ve live here more than 40 years. In 1992 I went round knocking on doors. And if you remember the campaign the Tories waged with the big posters, Labour tax bombshell. I was knocking on doors of people who were unemployed, who were on low wages as well, saying ‘I can’t vote for you because you’ll increase my taxes.’ And we hadn’t won the argument about a fair taxation system. So of course I’m not going to make that mistake again. And I’’m trying to persuade the Labour party we should never let them traduce our policies in that way.

In 1992 Labour proposed tax and national insurance increases for higher earners. The party claimed that eight out of 10 people would be better off under its plans, and that the low paid would be much better off, but it was said that many people found the plans off-putting because they thought that at some point in the future they might earn enough to be in the higher-earning tax bracket. This insight, and the 1992 result generally, had a huge influence on Tony Blair and helped to explain why New Labour was so solicitous towards “aspirational” voters. It is interesting that McDonnell is adopting the same thinking, although is most policy respects McDonnell and Blair remain miles apart.

  • McDonnell dismissed claims that Jeremy Corbyn is a “dreamer”. When this was put to him by Nicholas Watt, he made the suggestion in the context of arguing that McDonnell himself was a much more practical politician, McDonnell replied:

This idea that Jeremy is a dreamer is absolute rubbish. You look at the work that he’s done on detailed policy. He’s led on housing for years, well in advance of anyone else. He’s a specialist in international affairs, always has been.

The Tory election poster from 1992.
The Tory election poster from 1992. Photograph: The Conservative Party Archive/Getty Images

Labour rules out voting for Brexit deal keeping UK in customs union temporarily

Theresa May chairs cabinet this morning and reportedly she is going to tell her ministers she wants a Brexit deal agreed with the EU by the end of this month. Finding an Irish backstop acceptable to both sides is the problem, but the EU side is increasingly open to the UK idea that would involve the whole of the UK staying in the customs union beyond the transition, which could form part of a solution.

The Labour party wants to keep the UK in a permanent customs union with the EU after Brexit and perhaps May has been assuming that her Irish backstop plan would make it harder for Labour to vote against her final deal. But last night, in an interview with Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt, the shadow chancellor John McDonnell quashed any lingering hopes of that kind that might have been wafting around Number 10. Asked if Labour would vote for a deal that would keep the UK in a customs union with the EU on a temporary basis, he said it would be “the worst of all worlds”. He replied:

I can’t see it because I think it would be the worst of all worlds. What I’m getting from business leaders, trade union leaders and others is they want permanence, they want stability.

And if the government says ‘well a customs union for a couple of years or maybe customs union until we decide there won’t be one,’ well actually that doesn’t give the stability for investment for anyone. It doesn’t give the stability either for the trade unions.

What I’m worried about is Theresa May comes back from Europe waving a piece of paper - and it won’t be Winston Churchill, it’ll be more like Neville Chamberlain. What we’ll see is peace in our time that will then disintegrate over time.

I’d rather she just came back and told us - if she can get a deal that protects jobs and the economy we’ll vote for it, but it can’t be half in half out. It can’t be, we’re in this week, but next year we might not be because, as I say, that’s the worst of all worlds.

If she can’t deliver, we can’t vote for it - move to one side and let us do the negotiations.

Labour wants a general election and, when McDonnell was asked if he thought the EU was open to reopening the negotiations under a new government, he said he thought this was a possibility. He told the programme:

All the messages that we get back over this whole period is that our European partners desperately want what we want: a deal that will protect their jobs and their economies in the same way that we want to. So we think there’s a deal to be held,

If they recognise the deal is unacceptable to Parliament I think that opens up a vista of the opportunity of real negotiations.

Today’s cabinet does not sound as if it is going to be the one where the Brexit deal gets settled for good, but it should be important. I will be covering the post-cabinet briefing, and anything else we learn about it, in detail.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Theresa May chairs cabinet.

10am: Richard Heaton, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, gives evidence to the Commons justice committee.

10am: Sir Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, gives evidence to the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee.

10.30am: Elizabeth Denham, the information commissioner, gives evidence to the Commons culture committee as part of its fake news inquiry. At 11.15am Electoral Commission executives are giving evidence. We will be covering the hearing on a separate live blog

11.30am: Philip Hammond, the chancellor, takes questions in the Commons.

12pm: Downing Street lobby briefing.

2.30pm: Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner, gives evidence to the Commons health committee.

As usual, I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary at lunchtime and another when I wrap up, probably at about 5pm.

Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.

John McDonnell on Newsnight
John McDonnell on Newsnight Photograph: BBC

Updated

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BANG Premier
BANG Premier
Khloé and Lamar's Love Story Turned Dark Fast—Here's What Really Happened
Explore the true story of Khloé Kardashian and Lamar Odom, as told in the 2026 Netflix Untold documentary. Discover the details of Odom's 2015 survival and their subsequent divorce.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
Girl pays $400 for an influencer ‘deal’. She gets a nasty surprise instead
Fashion fantasy gets a reality check.
We Got This Covered
We Got This Covered
Utah woman waits in line for a ride at Disney. Then something disturbing happens. Now she’s speaking out
Disney Resorts like Disneyland and Disney World are supposed to be the most magical place on Earth, and they are for thousands of families. But, it can also be a place that exists like many others for women across the United States—a place where their boundaries get pushed and a…
The Mary Sue
The Mary Sue
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