Rise of born again Brexiteers could change Theresa May's strategy, says MACER HALL

Yet the elevation of the Rochdale-born bus driver’s son to one of the Government’s great offices of state has altered the balance of Theresa May’s team in a way that could change the course of the Brexit negotiations dramatically. Mr Javid’s opposition to the Prime Minister’s plan for a customs partnership with Brussels proved decisive at Wednesday’s meeting of her Brexit sub-committee.

By replacing the pro-Brussels Amber Rudd, the new Home Secretary gave Cabinet ministers wanting looser customs arrangements with the EU a 6-5 majority. An alliance of veteran Leave campaigners such as Boris Johnson and David Davis with born-again Brexiteers including Mr Javid and Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson now has the upper hand over Chancellor Philip Hammond and the rest of the Europhiles.

Brexit-backing MPs appear to have forgiven Mr Javid for his decision during the 2016 referendum to side with the Project Fear propaganda campaign led by the then chancellor George Osborne.

“Sajid had proper Eurosceptic instincts but was bullied by Osborne into supporting the Remain campaign,” said one senior ministerial source. “He is now proving to be his own man and won’t be bullied by anyone.” 

Some MPs are already talking up Mr Javid, who climbed from a modest immigrant background to successful business career before arriving at Westminster, as a credible challenger capable of appealing to the overwhelmingly Eurosceptic Tory grassroots in a future party leadership contest.

More immediately, his rise looks set to shift the Government’s position on Brexit, widening the gap between the Tory frontbench and the cross-party majority across the commons that favours effectively keeping the UK tied into a customs union and allowing Brussels to continue meddling in British affairs.

It raises the chances of damaging Commons defeats for the Government over key Brexit legislation later this year.

The Cabinet’s tilt away from the customs partnership plan also increases the distance between the two sides in the Brussels negotiations European Commission chiefs have already rejected the blueprint for high-tech border controls that is Mrs May’s only alternative to the dumped partnership proposal. 

Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier spent much of the week posturing on the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic to rubbish the Brexiteers’ border solution while Irish premier Leo Varadkar has been threatening to veto it.

EU officials still hope the Commons will force the Government into accepting a fudge but are increasingly nervous that the Brexiteers are gaining the ascendancy within the Cabinet. With the Brussels and UK negotiating teams both hardening their position, senior Tories admit the chances of Mrs May being forced to walk out of the talks without a deal have begun to rise again.

“It is getting difficult to see how the circle gets squared,” one said. A departure from the EU without a deal, leaving the UK trading with the bloc on the basis of World Trade Organisation rules, would delight long-standing Tory Eurosceptics.

And the Cabinet’s most enthusiastic Brexiteers are understood to be quietly biding their time in the hope that the talks do collapse and the complete break with Brussels they have always dreamed of arrives.

Mrs May, who has long insisted that “no deal is better than a bad deal”, will need to be prepared to trumpet the virtues of a walkout if she is to escape such an outcome wrecking her premiership. The Prime Minister took the bold and unexpected decision to promote Mr Javid this week. She may well need to spring some more surprises to address the consequences of the altered balance in her team.

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AMBER Rudd’s resignation as Home Secretary this week has sparked renewed concern among MPs that her former department remains as ungovernable as ever. For decades the Home Office has had a habit of destroying promising ministerial careers in their prime.

The last Labour government attempted to mend the “not fit for purpose” department by carving away the responsibility for prisons, courts and the probation service into a separate Ministry of Justice. Now some Tories are suggesting another split is needed to put a single Cabinet minister in charge of immigration policy in the wake of the Windrush scandal.

Can a new Ministry of Citizenship and Border Control be far away? Senior backbencher Sir Nicholas Soames mooted the idea of a new immigration department at Business Questions in the Commons on Thursday.

“These issues go back to the hangover from the end of empire and go forward to the development of a robust and effective programme after Brexit that is consistent with an open and confident Britain,” he told MPs.

Another Tory MP told me: “In years of constituency casework the Home Office has always been the worst department to deal with. It does not treat people as human beings. We need an immigration policy that is firm, fair and humane. It urgently needs to be taken out of the Home Office.” 

Population movement and the strain it can put on the fabric of societies has become an incendiary issue in most Western democracies during the early years of this century. It has driven insurgent populist movements throughout Europe and in the US.

The EU’s failure to control its borders, its inflexible free-movement rules and the security concerns raised by the open-door Schengen Zone have all bred disillusionment with Brussels rule across Europe, not just in the UK.

Britain quits the EU in less than a year yet Theresa May’s Government has shown little sign of work in developing a post-Brexit immigration policy. Given the issue shows no sign of going down the political agenda throughout the West, the Prime Minister should seriously look at breaking up the department she used to head.