May faces cabinet pressure amid calls to drop Chequers plan
Theresa May will face pressure on Monday as Brexiters will urge the Prime Minister and her cabinet to ditch the Brexit Chequers plan after her meeting with EU leaders in Salzburg last week.
Pressure comes from within the Cabinet as backbench Brexiters such as ex-Brexit Minister David Davis and Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg push the PM and her ministers to back an alternative 'Plan A+' for a hard Brexit laid out by the free market-supporting Institute of Economic Affairs.
The launch of the alternative proposals on Monday will come out just hours before May faces her cabinet after what was seen as a humiliating Salzburg summit for her.
The European Union rejected key elements of her blueprint, forcing the government back to the drawing board. However, May continued to say that Chequers was the only option.
Some ministers were reported to be losing faith in the Chequers plan are now moving towards a Canada-style trade deal. Nevertheless, this option would force the UK to accept the EU’s backstop proposal for Northern Ireland which would see a hard border down the Irish sea.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt at the weekend refused to rule out the prospect that the government could switch to a Canada-style trade deal.
On Sunday, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab told the BBC that a Canada-style deal would mean agreeing to customs controls between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, something May has firmly ruled out. Raab said the government would keep negotiating with the EU on the basis of her plan.
After speculation suggested that May could resign over the plan or could call for snap elections in order to save it. Raab denied the possibility of new elections.
May likely to face more of a concerted and coordinated effort at the Tory party conference next week, when Brexiters in her cabinet could try to shift her towards the kind of free trade proposal Davis and Rees-Mogg, reported ITV.
The IEA's Plan A+ states that "tying the UK to future EU regulation is a major threat to the UK economy" is in stark opposition to the common rulebook proposed in the Chequers plan that would mean the EU setting standards for the production of goods and food in the UK.
On Northern Ireland, Plan A+ recommends "a basic free trade agreement between the UK and the EU for goods, and a commitment by the parties to undertake all necessary investment and cooperation mechanisms to enable formalities on trade between Northern Ireland and Ireland to be overseen away from the border", and if the EU refuses to recognise UK regulations after the exit date, the UK "should be prepared to take action" via the WTO.