Theresa May’s “Brexit war cabinet” is meeting on Wednesday to try to thrash out a way forward on the divisive issue of customs arrangements after EU withdrawal.
Unconfirmed reports on Tuesday night said that Chancellor Philip Hammond has thrown his weight behind a customs partnership proposal thought to be favoured by the Prime Minister but branded “cretinous” by critics.
The European Research Group (ERG) of eurosceptic Tory MPs has sent Mrs May a report detailing its opposition to the plan, developed by her representative in Brexit talks, Olly Robbins.
Downing Street has been privately warned that a customs partnership could collapse the Government, as committed Brexiteers on the Tory backbenches regard it as unacceptable as it would deliver “Brexit in name only”.
Although the European Commission has said it wants a solution for the Irish border by its upcoming summit in June, there is no requirement on Mrs May to come to a final decision at Wednesday’s meeting of the Brexit strategy and negotiations sub-committee.
It was widely expected that she may seek to stave off potential resignations by keeping all options open.
If the UK decided to set different tariffs from its European neighbours, traders would claim refunds from HM Revenue and Customs for goods which stay in Britain.
Mr Robbins is understood to regard the partnership as a means of avoiding a hard border in Ireland while keeping the UK out of the European customs union.
But Brexit Secretary David Davis has confirmed that Brussels is “pushing back” at the scheme, as well as a second UK proposal for a “streamlined customs arrangement” using new technology to avoid the need for checks at the border.
Now Mr Davis has told a House of Lords committee: “The Commission did push back on both.”
Brussels is concerned both by the prospect of “porosity” on the EU’s external border and by the risk of creating a precedent which might be copied elsewhere, he said.
Tory Brexiteers fear the scheme could indefinitely trap the UK within the EU’s customs arrangements, as well as being expensive and complicated to operate.
ERG chair Jacob Rees-Mogg openly mocked the idea as “completely cretinous, the silliest thing I could possibly think of… a betrayal of good sense”.
And former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith told the Daily Telegraph that the ERG report had killed the argument for the customs partnership “stone dead”.
Former Brexit minister David Jones told BBC2’s Newsnight: “Certainly there would be a lot of very disappointed Brexiteers if we were to end up in a customs partnership.
“The Prime Minister’s calculations have got to include exactly what reaction there would be from the parliamentary party and the wider Conservative Party if we were to enter into that sort of relationship.”
“What we are not going to do is make trade harder for the many businesses in this country, nor make peace in Northern Ireland something that we put at risk,” Ms Morgan said.
Failure to come up with a solution could leave the UK forced to fall back on the European Commission’s “backstop” option, which would effectively draw a customs border down the Irish Sea.
Mrs May has insisted that no British prime minister could accept such a scenario. And it would infuriate the Democratic Unionist Party, whose MPs prop up the minority Conservative Government in the House of Commons.
A survey for The Guardian found that public confidence in a successful Brexit negotiation has fallen to its lowest point since the question was first asked by pollster ICM in October.
Some 28% of the 2,026 people questioned between April 27 and 29 said the expected a satisfactory outcome, against 47% who did not. The overall confidence score of minus 19 was sharply down from the minus four recorded in December.
But a separate poll by ComRes for the Daily Express found that 47% believe international confidence in Britain’s economy is stronger under Mrs May, compared with 22% who said it would be stronger under Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn.
