This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A plan from rival Conservative factions aimed at securing a breakthrough in the Brexit impasse has been greeted with immediate scepticism from EU officials, who said the proposals were not workable.

Senior Tory Brexit supporters including Jacob Rees-Mogg and Steve Baker hatched the plan with leading remainers including Nicky Morgan and Stephen Hammond.

The proposal involves paying the £39bn EU divorce bill, redrafting the backstop arrangements over the Irish border and extending the implementation period until December 2021.

The extra time would be used to try to agree a free-trade deal, while citizens’ rights would be guaranteed. In that period, there would be no customs checks on the Irish border. The initiative has been called the “Malthouse compromise” after the housing minister Kit Malthouse, who entreated the two warring factions to attempt talks.

EU officials dismissed the suggested compromise, which they said failed to offer Ireland any reassurance on the avoidance of a hard border.

Brussels sources pointed out the EU’s deputy chief negotiator, Sabine Weyand, had said technology to avoid a hard border does not exist. “What a cunning plan,” laughed one official. “This is just nonsense,” echoed an EU diplomat.

Brexit-backing MPs, including Rees-Mogg, were still seeking fresh reassurances from the prime minister before they vote for a government-backed amendment on the backstop on Tuesday evening, which could pave the way for the new plan to be put to Brussels.

Rees-Mogg told journalists on Tuesday morning he would wait and see whether the government interpreted the amendment, tabled by the senior MP Graham Brady, as an instruction to try to reopen the 585-page withdrawal agreement.

“Let’s see what the prime minister says at the dispatch box today and what the Brady amendment really means,” he said.

Theresa May is expected to open the debate for the government, allowing her to set out her next steps for MPs. She faces conflicting pressures from rival wings of her party.

As well as Rees-Mogg’s demands for a pledge to rework the backstop, pro-soft Brexit ministers are demanding a clear commitment that she will hold another vote to allow MPs to reject no deal, if attempts at renegotiation fail.

The business minister Richard Harrington told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday he and colleagues were demanding a promise from the prime minister that she would secure her plan B within a fortnight – or give them another chance to reject no deal.

“If she is prepared to give that irrevocable undertaking – which means at the dispatch box or a similar instrument – many of us feel, ‘Well, OK for the sake of everything, we will give her two weeks.’ But that is it.”

Iain Duncan Smith, the Eurosceptic former Conservative leader, told Today the plan represented “the best hope that we’ve got” and urged the government to get behind it.

The DUP said later it would also back the Malthouse plan. In a statement, the party leader, Arlene Foster, said the proposal “can unify a number of strands in the Brexit debate including the views of remainers and leavers”.

She said: “If the prime minister is seeking to find a united front, both between elements in her own party and the DUP, in the negotiations which she will enter with the European Union, then this is a proposition which she should not turn her back on.”

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Should the hunt for a solution involving technology fail, the so-called safety net proposed by the Tory MPs would involve the EU agreeing to a three-year transition period without there being any agreement on a backstop. The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has repeatedly said it is “certain” that without the legally operable backstop, there will be no transition period for the British economy after 29 March.

A spokesman for the European commission declined to comment on the proposals emanating from Westminster.

He said: “This is not a Brussels day, this is a London day. Let’s have the vote and we will see.”

Morgan confirmed the proposal had been reached after days of discussion coordinated by Malthouse.

“The prime minister has been aware of the discussions. At some point, there has to be compromise on all sides in order to get a deal over the line,” she said.

Setting out the detail of the “Malthouse compromise”, Morgan said: “The first part of it is to recast the backstop as a sort of free-trade-agreement-lite. That would involve a commitment by all sides to have no hard border on the island of Ireland, but allow trade to continue, while there is a slightly longer implementation period till December 2021.”

In return, Brexit supporters have agreed to drop their demand that the £39bn divorce settlement be withheld, she said.

The remain-supporting MP characterised the proposals as “the withdrawal agreement we have got at the moment with changes to the backstop”.

“People like me want to avoid a no-deal outcome and we have to look for ways to do that, and we are all prepared to compromise on that,” she said.

Steve Baker, one of the leaders of the hard-Brexit European Research Group, tweeted his backing for the proposals.

Steve Baker MP (@SteveBakerHW) “The Malthouse Compromise” after @kitmalthouse, who brought us together



We need to get out of the EU on time and with a functioning government.



This is how. #Brexit https://t.co/mB9vmdkX90

The international trade secretary, Liam Fox, gave only muted backing to the idea. “There are all sort of ideas being put out, but parliament can’t take a decision unless that is on the order paper, and it is not on the order paper today,” he told Today.

“The government is open to listening to all ideas. It is time that we actually made progress. Voters want parliament to make a decision.”

It is still unclear whether the prime minister is prepared to pursue the offer of compromise.

Some Conservative MPs rejected the plan, with “people’s vote” supporter Anna Soubry saying it was “a recipe for no-deal Brexit”.

“The prospect of the EU ripping up the withdrawal agreement or allowing a transition period without the backstop is very remote – and for good reason given the risks to the Irish peace process. Instead, this scheme backed by Jacob Rees-Mogg is a recipe for the no-deal Brexit that the hard Brexiters have always craved.

“We cannot allow our economy, vital public services and life chances of young people to be sacrificed for a last-minute gesture towards Conservative party unity,” she said.