Theresa May today begs Jeremy Corbyn to ‘do a deal’ over Brexit – as she urges her party to accept the ‘stepping stone’ of a customs union as the price for finally leaving the EU.
The Prime Minister uses an article in today’s Mail on Sunday to appeal directly to the Labour leader to reach an agreement. She hopes such a deal could avoid the UK having to take part in the European Parliament elections on May 23.
But last night, Tory Eurosceptics reacted with fury to the plan for a so-called ‘customs framework’ or ‘customs arrangement’, describing it as ‘abject surrender’.
Theresa May today begs Jeremy Corbyn to ‘do a deal’ over Brexit – as she urges her party to accept the ‘stepping stone’ of a customs union as the price for finally leaving the EU
Downing Street hopes that Mr Corbyn’s poor showing in Thursday’s local elections, when Labour lost dozens of seats in heartland Leave-voting areas, will motivate him to strike a deal.
The hopes of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn of achieving a controversial customs union Brexit will rest on whether they can bring the so-called ‘middle 400’ MPs on board.
Those are the Tory, Labour and other MPs who just want a Brexit deal passed to avoid either No Deal or a second referendum.
If the Prime Minister can get most of the 270 pro-deal Tories to back her and Mr Corbyn can cajole even half of his 246 MPs to follow him, the deal may yet get through.
The Tories were also punished over the Brexit impasse, losing 1,300 seats – their worst result in 24 years.
Mrs May writes that ‘reaching an agreement will require compromise from both sides’ – but promises her MPs that if the UK enters the ‘arrangement’ now in order to secure cross-party support, they will be able to unpick it at a future date.
‘This deal will be a stepping stone to a brighter future, outside the EU, where the UK can determine the road ahead,’ she says. ‘This is because no parliament can bind its successor.’
She adds: ‘To the Leader of the Opposition, I say this: let’s listen to what the voters said in the local elections and put our differences aside for a moment. Let’s do a deal.’
As The Mail on Sunday revealed last month, Tory negotiators have told Labour that the Government would accept UK membership of a customs union – a red line for Brexiteers – but on condition that they called it something else to avoid inflaming party anger. One source said: ‘It must look like a duck and quack like a duck, but it doesn’t have to be called a duck.’
Values: Michael Gove makes his pitch in Scotland
Two leading contenders to replace Theresa May made major pitches for the keys to No 10 yesterday as the battle for the Tory leadership intensified.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove gave an emotionally charged address to the Scottish Conservatives in Aberdeen, where he was raised by adoptive parents.
In a well-received speech in which he gave his clearest hint yet that he is preparing to run to be Prime Minister, Mr Gove set out a vision of how he would lead the country based on the values taught to him by his mother and father.
He said his parents’ values included: ‘A belief that business is a force for good. A faith in education as a good in itself. A compassion for those less fortunate, which leads to action not just words. A big heart that they don’t want to wear on their sleeve. A willingness to take risks and believe the best in others. A basic sense of justice, combined with a readiness to forgive.’
He later refused to rule out running in the looming contest when asked by The Mail on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Home Secretary Sajid Javid also used his life story to set out his stall. In a clear pitch to the Left of the party and Labour voters, he spoke at the Welsh Conservative Party conference about how the state had helped him rise up from being a working class child in Rochdale to a City high-flyer.
Straying way beyond his Home Affairs brief, he said: ‘Health, education, work and pensions. For many in Westminster, these are the names of departments to be managed. But for my family growing up, they were our lifelines, and ultimately the ladder to my success.’
Referring to his brothers, he added: ‘They’re one reason that my parents, themselves raised by dollar-a-day farmers in rural Pakistan, could go on to raise a chief superintendent, an entrepreneur, a finance professional and a Cabinet Minister.’
Government sources insisted last night that an ‘arrangement’ would differ from a union in that the UK would still be free to strike trade deals with non-EU countries. It could also be written directly into the Withdrawal Agreement Bill without approval from Brussels.
But former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith branded the idea of a customs union deal as ‘total anathema’. He said: ‘The idea we would leave the EU but have the EU decide all our future trading arrangements, decide what our tariffs are – basically, that’s the most ridiculous position to be in.’
Mr Duncan Smith added: ‘The election result was so devastating that the Prime Minister now has to consider herself a caretaker PM.
‘She must now move fast to resolve this matter of leadership urgently because everywhere you went [during campaigning], the element of trust in the PM had completely broken down.
‘The idea that she is now able to do a deal with an equally discredited Labour Party is ridiculous.’ And Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the Tory party’s Brexiteer European Research Group, condemned a customs union deal as ‘symbolic of an attempt by the political establishment to avoid Brexit, to have a pretend Brexit.’ He also appeared to suggest it was Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill who was making the decisions, not Mrs May. ‘She seems at the moment to have such authority as the Cabinet Secretary allows her,’ Mr Rees-Mogg said.
Tory arch-Brexiteer Peter Bone said any customs union deal would amount to ‘an abject
