BuzzFeed News: Senior ministers are telling Theresa May to go for a no-deal Brexit if the EU won't make concessions

12 November 2018

Senior cabinet ministers led by Brexit secretary Dominic Raab will tell Theresa May that the current deal on offer from the EU is unacceptable and she should prepare for the UK to leave with no deal if she cannot secure further concessions.

In a significant raising of the pressure on May from inside her own cabinet, the group of senior ministers will make clear to the prime minister that they could not support a deal that breaches their two red lines.

They are doubling down on their demands that the EU drops its Northern Ireland-only “backstop to the backstop” and that the deal must include a “break clause” mechanism that would allow the UK to unilaterally leave a UK-wide customs arrangement.

The renewed cabinet opposition to the emerging draft Brexit treaty has increased the chances of Britain leaving without a deal. EU sources told BuzzFeed News they would not give in to UK ministers’ demands. If the choice is between a unilateral break clause and no deal, then it is no deal, a senior EU government official said. [...]

A UK official told BuzzFeed News they expected May to eventually present the cabinet with what she and attorney general Geoffrey Cox would claim as a victory on the break clause mechanism. But, they said, it would likely still require mutual agreement with Brussels in order to be triggered. [...]

But a Whitehall source complained the EU was now demanding a “supermarket sweep” of concessions from the UK. They warned a deal that committed the UK to state aid rules would be “worse” than the proposed deal rejected by the cabinet in October. [...]

“There is no point agreeing a deal which will be voted down by parliament, cause the PM to fall, and result in chaos,” said a cabinet source.

They said the opposition to the deal among both Leave- and Remain-supporting MPs following the resignation of transport minister Jo Johnson on Friday meant that if May lost a vote on the deal, she would be ousted before she could try to put it to a second vote. [...]

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