Cabinet ministers trying to steer the prime minister away from her Brexit proposals will hold back from giving them full support and even try to avoid using the word “Chequers” in interviews, The Independent has learnt.
Several members of the cabinet will use the approach to signal that patience with Theresa May’s strategy has waned, in a bid to ease her towards pursuing a free trade deal arrangement.
Indications are emerging in Whitehall that Ms May is preparing a “Chequers 2” approach to be laid out after conference, but with changes to accommodate Brussels rather than Tory Brexiteers who want on overall looser arrangement with the EU.
It comes ahead of the Tory conference in Birmingham at which attempts to showcase a domestic policy agenda are likely to be overshadowed by Brexit squabbling.
One cabinet minister told The Independent it was obvious the Chequers deal as it stood was “not going to work” either for Brussels or for the parliamentary party.
“We do need to find a way of refining the tune,” the minister said.
Another indicated they would try to steer clear of actually saying the word “Chequers” when talking about policy to try and let it slip from the public discourse.
Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt enraged Downing Street when he suggested last week that the government could still be open to a Canada-style free trade deal with the EU.
The cabinet will meet again on the first Tuesday after the conference, with many having felt that an opportunity to pressure the prime minister at its previous meeting was lost.
Another senior minister said the PM’s top team needed to show her a way out of the impasse she finds herself in, while also not destabilising the party by undermining her, describing it as “gentle encouragement”.
It will come ahead of the October European Council summit, by which time Ms May was meant to have a deal wrapped up. There may now be a further summit in November.
Rather than abandoning her plans, there is instead speculation in Whitehall that Ms May will amend the parts relating to her proposed customs set up to make them more acceptable to Michel Barnier and his EU negotiating team.
The move may provoke criticism from Brexiteers that she is breaking her pledge not to join a customs union, as she continues to resist the shift to Canada-style trade deal.
Ms May will deny making a U-turn on Chequers and officials have already dubbed the idea “Chequers 2”.
It comes amid a vicious Tory row on the eve of conference after Boris Johnson publicly attacked Ms May’s Brexit plans.
The former foreign secretary used a round of television interviews on Friday to lash out at her negotiating strategy, refusing to rule out a leadership challenge or voting against a Brexit deal.
His comments, which followed a lengthy newspaper article attacking the Chequers plan, were then criticised by his political opponents within the party.
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