British Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan to hold talks with leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn, in an effort to break the Brexit deadlock, has received a cautious welcome from EU officials. However, a new political battle has erupted in the Conservative Party as many within it expressed their outrage at the decision to engage with the Labour Party, which they warned would shift Britain towards a softer Brexit.
“It is very disappointing that the cabinet has decided to entrust the final handling of Brexit to Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party,” said Boris Johnson, the former Foreign Secretary and hard Brexiteer. “It now seems all too likely that British trade policy and key law-making powers will be handed over to Brussels - with no say for the U.K,” he added, insisting that there were no circumstances in which he could support being part of a customs union with the EU - which the Labour Party has been pushing for. Johnson, who had twice voted against May’s withdrawal deal because of the Irish backstop arrangement in it, supported the deal last Friday after May said she would step down to make way for a successor in time for the next phase of negotiations if her deal were agreed to. He was not alone as other MPs pushing for a “hard” Brexit lambasted the decision to open talks with Corbyn, with one – Jacob Rees-Mogg – describing him as a “known Marxist.”
The government’s confidence and supply partner in Parliament – the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland – also attacked the decision accusing the government of “subcontracting out the future of Brexit,” to a man who the Conservatives had “demonised for four years.”
Corbyn has welcomed the Prime Minister’s offer, which he said would provide an opportunity for Parliament to vote on proposals to avoid a no deal Brexit and give “security and certainty” to the public. Labour’s proposals centre on being part of a customs union with the EU and introducing protections for workers, and consumers as well as environmental protections.
“Even if, after today, we don’t know what the end result will be, let us be patient,” tweeted European Council President Donald Tusk following May’s announcement in Downing Street on Tuesday night. The European Parliament’s chief negotiator on Brexit Guy Verhofstadt, said that it was “better late than never” that May was seeking a cross-party compromise.
The government has insisted it has been left with little choice but to reach out of Labour after Conservatives and the DUP– insisted they could never support May’s deal in its current manifestation. Their concerns centre around the backstop that would put UK in a customs union with the EU were negotiations on future relations to break down, in order to prevent a “hard” border developing on the island of Ireland. Even the government’s legal advice on this has acknowledged that there is no mechanism for the UK to exit the backstop unilaterally, leaving being permanently locked into it a legal risk. “it is the remorseless logic of not backing the Prime minister’s deal,” Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay told the BBC on Wednesday morning.
The customs union solution would solve the hard border risk in Northern Ireland, and would be welcome by businesses through the avoidance of the tariff issue. However, Brexiteers believe it would not amount to a Brexit because it would not leave Britain free to make its own trade deals with the rest of the world in the way they had envisaged Brexit doing.
Nevertheless, the customs union deal came the closest to commanding a parliamentary majority in a series of indicative votes on alternative Brexit options earlier this week. It lost by just three votes.