Theresa May isolated as party turns on ‘chaotic’ Brexit plan and EU leaders give her the cold shoulder
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/10/18/theresa-may-isolated-party-turns-chaotic-brexit-plan-eu-leaders/
Theresa May was on Thursday evening increasingly isolated over her plan to keep Britain tied to the EU for longer as she was savaged by both wings of her party and left in the cold by EU leaders.
Mrs May confirmed on Thursday that she was prepared to consider extending the transition period – currently due to end in December 2020 – by “a matter of months” in an attempt to break the deadlock over the Northern Ireland border issue.
The move enraged Brexiteers who said it would cost billions, and angered members of the Cabinet who said they had not formally agreed the plan before she offered it up as a bargaining chip.
Mrs May also faced a potential mutiny from Tory MPs north of the border, including David Mundell, the Scottish Secretary, who said the proposal was “unacceptable” because it would delay the UK’s exit from the hated Common Fisheries Policy.
The Prime Minister was accused by one of her own ministers of presiding over “total chaos” while her DUP allies said she was in a “mad panic”.
Having started the Brussels summit with a call for “trust” from her fellow leaders, she appeared to have lost the support of her own MPs, with one May loyalist admitting she was “losing the confidence” of her party.
Earlier this year Downing Street had described as a “categoric lie” the suggestion that Mrs May could accept an extension to the transition period.
The Prime Minister also aroused suspicion by giving the Irish delegation the impression in private she had agreed to an open-ended backstop solution for the Irish border while publicly saying it had to be temporary.
Mrs May had hoped the meeting would be an improvement on last month’s Salzburg summit, where she was humiliated, but the outcome was little better as the EU27 shut her out of a dinner before several leaders went to the pub without her.
The Prime Minister believes that agreeing an extension will make it more likely that the EU will accept Britain’s proposal for the whole of the UK to remain in a customs union with the EU as a “backstop” until an alternative solution to avoid a hard border is found.
However, she appeared to have misjudged the mood among the other 27 leaders, who insisted that a withdrawal agreement must be based on Brussels’ plan for a Northern Ireland-only backstop that would put a border in the Irish Sea.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said the biggest roadblock to a deal was Mrs May’s inability to find a solution that commanded support at home.
He said: “It’s not for the EU to make concessions to deal with UK political issues. I cannot be more clear on this. This is no longer a technical issue, it’s for the political ability of the UK to reach an agreement that can be presented to us. I hope [Britain] will move in the coming days and weeks to find an agreement.”
At a press conference on Thursday evening Mrs May insisted there was a “very real sense” among EU leaders that a Brexit deal was closer and that “people want that deal to be done”. She also said the negotiations would get “tougher” because “difficult issues” remained unresolved.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, said a deal “will be done” and will “probably” involve an extension of the transition period. In her desperation to make progress, Mrs May appeared to alter her rhetoric depending on what she thought different leaders wanted to hear, but only succeeded in sowing confusion.
Helen McEntee, Ireland’s Europe minister, said Mrs May “was very clear” during a meeting with the Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar that she understood the backstop plan could not have a fixed end date. She said: “You need to have it there and it can’t run out after a year or two and she very much agreed with that.”
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