Theresa May orders ministers to draw up plans for hard Brexit as she prepares to call EU’s bluff in negotiations
Brexit Secretary David Davis told the Cabinet UK would not land a good exit deal without showing we were prepared to go it alone
THERESA May yesterday ordered all Cabinet ministers to start drawing up laws for a hard Brexit in a bid to call the EU’s bluff.
The instruction came after Brexit Secretary David Davis briefed the PM’s top table on the strategy for exit negotiations ahead of their start next month.
Britain will only land a good trade deal if the remaining 27 members believe we really are prepared to go it alone without any agreement, Davis told the Cabinet.
That means publicly drawing up a huge raft of fresh regulations to persuade businesses to stay - from big corporation tax cuts to a new immigration system – to be enforced by April 2019.
Davis dubbed the planning as “the most important peacetime operation” that the government has ever mounted.
Downing Street described the Cabinet discussion as preparations for “the unlikely scenario in which no mutually satisfactory agreement can be reached”.
The PM’s official spokesman said: “The message was that we are not going to fail, but it is important that departments understand the challenges ahead”.
But The Sun can reveal that the secret discussion was far more significant.
The PM’s team now believe that the EU will try to force a very tough settlement on Britain unless it fears its huge trade surplus with us is at serious risk.
A senior Cabinet source said: “The EU has to be believe we’re prepared to walk away, so that makes getting the legislation in place so that we can.
“It’s going to be a very intense two year game of bluff.”
related stories
The development ahead of May’s formal triggering of Article 50 – expected in two weeks time – came as Boris Johnson hits back at Sir John Major to blast his “prognostications of gloom”.
Tory MPs were stunned by the ferocity of the ex-PM’s attack on May for being “unreal and over-optimistic” about the UK’s EU exit demands.
In a speech to the British Chamber of Commerce, the Foreign Secretary said he is fed up with people “droning and moaning” about the risks of Brexit.
Boris added: “I feel like saying: ‘Come off it, sunshine.’
“It’s very important as we set out on this journey that we are positive about the outcome.”
But the fresh Tory party civil war over Brexit deepened yesterday as George Osborne also waded to warn that leaving the EU’s single market could be the “biggest act of protectionism in British history”.
While insisting he wasn’t trying to “fight the last war”, the ex-Chancellor and mastermind of the failed Project Fear campaign insisted it was vital to keep free trade with “our biggest export market” and not walk away without any deal.
Osborne added: “No amount of trade deals with New Zealand are going to replace that we do at the moment with our big European neighbours”.