There is widespread, fevered speculation that the prime minister will move away from her Chequers plan for a future relationship with the EU at this afternoon’s Cabinet, under intense pressure from her ministerial colleagues.
Having now spoken to several ministers, I am clear that she will stand firm on Chequers, and there probably won’t be a concerted and coordinated effort TODAY from the Brexiters in her team – Gove, Fox, Leadsom, Mordaunt and McVey – to shift her towards the kind of free trade proposal preferred by Boris Johnson, David Davis, Jacob Rees-Mogg and the European Research Group.
That said, and as I’ve mentioned before, it is becoming harder and harder for Brexity ministers – apart, conspicuously, from Gove – to adhere to collective cabinet responsibility for a Chequers deal they loathe.
At some point, the elastic that ties them to government will snap and one or more of them will quit. But my sense is today’s not that moment of theatre.
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