Uk politics

Theresa May is through Chequers with a plan that proposes having the UK follow EU rules on goods and agri-foods. This isn’t what the Cabinet’s Brexiteers would have expected two years ago, or even nine months ago. But as I say in The Sun this morning, the biggest single reason they are putting up with this is that they don’t have an alternative plan. When Boris Johnson invited the Cabinet’s Brexiteers plus Gavin Williamson and Sajid Javid, who were pivotal to the Brexiter inner Cabinet’s rejection of Theresa May’s new customs partnership plan, to his office for a meeting on Wednesday morning it only highlighted the group’s problems. First, Javid

Theresa May’s Cabinet away day is finally over and the Prime Minister can go to sleep safe in the knowledge that there have been no resignations… yet. In a No 10 statement this evening, May said the Cabinet had agreed its collective position for the Brexit negotiations – for a common rule book on industrial goods and agricultural products. This means the UK would have to in effect follow EU rules in these sectors: ‘Our proposal will create a U.K. – EU free trade area which establishes a common rule book for industrial goods and agricultural products. This maintains high standards in these areas, but we will also ensure that no

Earlier I wrote about how a paper circulated to ministers before Chequers makes clear that the UK’s plan to follow a ‘common rulebook for all goods including agri-food’ with the EU ‘would not allow the UK to accommodate a likely ask from the US in a future trade deal’ as the UK would be unable to recognise the US’s ‘array of standards’. But Number 10 are absolutely insistent that this doesn’t mean there won’t be a trade deal with the US; they also say that senior figures in government and trade experts are confident that a deal could still be done and that Theresa May wouldn’t be talking to Donald Trump

This is one of the more important notes I’ve written recently, because it contains what well-placed sources tell me are the main elements of the Prime Minister’s Brexit plan – which will be put to her cabinet for approval on Friday. I would characterise the kernel of what she wants as the softest possible Brexit, subject to driving only the odd coach over her self-imposed red lines, as opposed to the full coach and horses. And I will start with my habitual apology: some of what follows is arcane, technical and – yes – a bit boring. But it matters. Let’s start with the PM’s putative third way on a