Theresa May’s spokesman says Chequers is the ‘only plan on the table’ for leaving the EU

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Downing Street has said it does not want to give Boris Johnson’s controversial anti-Chequers column any more publicity and insisted there would be no backing away from the Brexit negotiating plan, despite a warning it could split the Tory party.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said he would not be drawn into responding to the former foreign secretary’s contention that Theresa May had wrapped “a suicide vest” around the British constitution in the early stages of the Brexit talks.

The spokesman said: “This isn’t language the prime minister would choose to use. Beyond that, I don’t plan on giving this article further oxygen.

“The prime minister is fully focused on the Brexit negotiations, which are at a very important and intense stage.”

The Conservative party was convulsed over the weekend after Johnson used the suicide vest analogy in a Mail on Sunday column, raising the stakes in his criticism of May’s Brexit strategy before the party’s conference later this month.

No 10 slaps down Boris Johnson over Chequers plan criticism Read more

There were also further allegations over the weekend that a dossier about Johnson’s personal life created by a member of Theresa May’s 2016 leadership campaign team had recently been circulating in Westminster.

No 10 said it would not be drawn into discussing the private life of an MP, and issued a denial when asked if Downing Street had been involved in the creation or circulation of the Johnson dossier. “Any involvement of No 10 is categorically untrue and offensive,” the prime minister’s official spokesman added.

Earlier on Monday, a former Brexit minister said the Conservatives would face a “catastrophic split” if Theresa May relied on Labour votes to push her Chequers plan through parliament.

Steve Baker, who quit in July over Chequers, said at least 80 Conservative MPs would be willing to vote against the plan, which Eurosceptics argue ties the UK too closely to the EU on regulation and alignment, hampering future bilateral trade deals.

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“If we come out of conference with her hoping to get Chequers through on the back of Labour votes, I think the EU negotiators would probably understand that if that were done, the Tory party would suffer the catastrophic split which thus far we have managed to avoid,” Baker said.

When asked about Baker’s comments, Downing Street said there was no alternative to Theresa May’s Chequers plan for leaving the EU. “Chequers is the only plan on the table [and it] will deliver on the will of the British people while avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland,” the prime minister’s official spokesman said.

May will chair a special three-hour cabinet meeting on Thursday morning to discuss the state of Whitehall preparations in the event of Britain leaving the European Union without having negotiated an exit deal.

On the same day ministers will publish another set of no-deal papers, detailing various preparations and impacts that crashing out of the European Union without a withdrawal agreement would have on specific sectors of the economy.

