Cabinet in despair as objections fall on deaf ears
Ministers thought they had slapped down unacceptable concessions, but PM’S speech proved otherwise
IT WAS the moment that pushed Theresa May’s already exasperated Eurosceptic ministers to the brink.
At the start of a three hour 20-minute marathon Cabinet yesterday, the Prime Minister presented her ministers with a paper outlining her “bold” new Brexit offer.
To those present, it appeared to give “anything and everything” to Labour. There, in black and white, was an explicit offer of free votes on a permanent customs union with the EU and a second referendum.
Chris Grayling, the Transport Secretary, and Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the Commons, both made clear that the Prime Minister’s deal was “unacceptable”.
Mr Grayling, a loyalist to the Prime Minister, was particularly damning in his analysis and to those around him appeared to be “on the verge” of quitting.
Putting the customs union and second referendum on the face of the Bill, he warned, risked shattering the Conservative Party.
One source said: “The point was made to her that Labour could table amendments on these things anyway, so why hand it to them on a plate? “It’s just bizarre.”
Mr Grayling and Mrs Leadsom both made clear that they “could not live with” the offer. Another source said: “They pointed out that the party and the country already felt that the sop to Labour had gone too far.
“They said it simply would not wash with the Party.”
Mrs Leadsom asked why the Government would have a free vote on something that had been ruled out in the manifesto and was not Government policy.
They were backed by two leadership contenders – Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, and Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary – along with Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General, and Liz Truss, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
Mr Cox warned that the unity of the party was at stake. “The party is a convoy that has to be held together,” he said.
Around the table there was a sense of despair. Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, had tried to lighten the mood by taking a packet of caramel waffles to share with colleagues after being photographed eating them earlier this week.
It did not work.
Even Julian Smith, the chief whip, warned the Prime Minister that her deal was likely to be defeated. According to one source, the Chief Whip kept trying to make an intervention during the meeting but Mrs May wouldn’t let him. The source said: “He wasn’t being called by the PM, and at the end he was saying, almost to himself, ‘we’re not going to get it’.”
The Prime Minister appeared to ignore the warning. She told her Cabinet that the only “realistic” approach was to treat the Withdrawal Agreement Bill as a “vehicle” for the will of Parliament.
She said: “The Withdrawal Agreement Bill is the vehicle which gets the UK out of the European Union and it is vital to find a way to get it over the line.”
Once it had passed the second reading next month, it could be amended at committee stage by a majority of MPS in the Commons. The Prime Minister’s plan for indicative votes would effectively become legally binding.
David Lidington, the Prime Minister’s de facto deputy and one of the few remaining loyalists, argued that Brexit was only going to become softer the more the deal was voted down.
Several other ministers made supportive interventions. Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said that the Government had to “play it as we find it”, highlighting the fact that the Tories do not have a majority.
“We have to work within the confines of Parliament,” he said.
Another source said that the usual Cabinet divides between Brexiteers and Remainers over a customs union were evident. Some Remain ministers were said to be “comfortable” with it, while Leavers argued it was “really bad”.
Eurosceptic Cabinet ministers left the meeting convinced that they had “slapped down” the Prime Minister’s concessions to Labour.
However, they were confounded when Mrs May made her speech yesterday afternoon in Charing Cross and they realised that key elements had survived.
Mrs May’s only concession appeared to be that the Government would only commit to a vote on a temporary, rather than a permanent, customs union, and would remove the reference to a free vote.
The move leaves open the option of whipping the vote rather than allowing MPS and ministers to vote with their consciences.
“They left Cabinet feeling as though they had slapped it down completely, so it was a surprise to see it come up in her speech,” a Cabinet source said.
The Prime Minister’s speech so enraged Eurosceptics that a delegation of eight Tory MPS marched to the office of Sir Graham Brady, the head of the 1922 Committee of backbench MPS, on the spur of the moment.
They intended to ask him to change the party rules so that MPS could hold a new vote to oust the Prime Minister. On arrival, however, they discovered that Sir Graham was not in his office. The group will discuss changing the rules today instead. Several Cabinet ministers appeared to have already given up any hope of the deal getting through the Commons.
Ms Truss warned that the Government risked further alienating Tory MPS without reward.
She was one of several ministers who said that the party now needed urgently to ramp up no-deal planning.
In a 10-minute presentation at the end of Cabinet Stephen Barclay, the Brexit Secretary, was said to have implicitly accused Philip Hammond of breaching collective responsibility by warning against no deal.
Yesterday morning a speech by Mr Hammond at the CBI had been trailed in which he warned that the next Conservative prime minister would not have a mandate to take Britain out of the EU without a deal.
Mr Barclay is said to have argued that, as official government policy was to leave without a deal on Oct 31 if one cannot be agreed, Mr Hammond’s comments amounted to a breach of Cabinet collective responsibility.
A source close to the Chancellor insisted he was not arguing that no deal was off the table, but warning of the risk it posed to the economy.
Mr Barclay is also said to have warned that the Government was at risk of being less prepared for no deal in October than it was in April.
“That would be inexcusable,” he said.
He highlighted a recent paper by Sir Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary, suggesting that a no-deal Brexit could lead to civil unrest. “What happens if we don’t deliver Brexit at all?” he asked. He also said that the Government needed to conduct an analysis of the potentially damaging impact of no Brexit.
Eurosceptics directly challenged the Prime Minister over the state of nodeal preparations.
Mr Grayling said that the Treasury needed to release more funding for no deal, only for the Prime Minister to interject and say that the Government was prepared.
Mrs Leadsom responded by pointing out that ministers had failed to hold any meetings recently on no-deal preparations. The Prime Minister said that she had reinstigated the meetings.
A source said: “The Brexiteers said they [the Government] had to make preparations for it, the Chancellor pushed back on it, but it was made clear to the room after the Chancellor had left that departments would be able to make submissions for more money for no-deal planning.” The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “Leaving the EU without a deal remains a plausible outcome and work to prepare for no deal remains ongoing.”
Penny Mordaunt, the Defence Secretary, said that she disagreed that there was not a mandate for no deal, but indicated that she wanted to avoid it.
The bleak mood in Cabinet worsened last night to the extent that ministers now believe the Prime Minister will have no choice but to pull her plans for a vote.
Ministers believe that collective responsibility is now “completely stretched”. They have accused the Prime Minister of cutting corners by insisting that agreement had been reached following contentious discussions in Cabinet, rather than getting them signed off in writing.
Some ministers have become so incensed that they have even called for formal votes in Cabinet to ensure that people’s positions are recorded.
A Cabinet source said: “The mood is really awful. It feels as though this is it now. We might be in the same territory we were before the first meaningful vote, where she doesn’t even put it to a vote. There is deep concern and unhappiness.”
‘The mood is really awful. It feels as thought this is it now. There is deep concern and unhappiness’