Jacob Rees-Mogg has claimed that he and the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, bonded in a meeting in Brussels over their shared assessment that Theresa May’s Chequers plan is “complete rubbish”.

The Tory MP, who was visiting the European commission with the cross-party Brexit select committee, said he had been encouraged by the lack of enthusiasm he had found for the prime minister’s plans.

Emerging from the commission’s headquarters, Rees-Mogg told reporters that both Brussels and Eurosceptic MPs agreed that a free trade deal on the same lines as that signed between the EU and Canada was the most promising way forward.

He said the UK should backtrack on the promises it made in a report last December to come up with a joint plan with Brussels for avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland.

Quick Guide Will the Chequers agreement survive? Show Who dislikes the Chequers agreement and why? Noisiest in their opposition are Tory Brexiters, not least David Davis and Boris Johnson, both of whom quit the cabinet in protest. They argue that the promise to maintain a common rulebook for goods and other continued alignment will mean a post-Brexit UK is tied to the EU without having a say on future rules, rather than being a free-trading independent nation. Labour has also disparaged the proposal, expressing deep scepticism about the so-called facilitated customs arrangement system. What about the EU? Brussels has sought to stay positive, but has deep concerns about elements of the plan viewed as overly pick-and-mix, and thus potentially incompatible with EU principles. Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, says he opposes both the customs plan and the idea of alignment for goods. He also makes plain his contention that the Chequers plan contains no workable idea for the Ireland-Northern Ireland border. But at the same time the EU has been careful to not entirely dismiss the proposals, raising the possibility it could accept some adapted version. Who supports the agreement? Officially, May and her cabinet, though even here the backing can seem lukewarm at times. Asked about Chequers, the home secretary, Sajid Javid, said it was the government’s plan “right now”, indicating alternative ideas could be considered. Is it doomed? Even May’s allies concede it will be a hugely difficult task to get the plan through parliament. Damian Green, the PM’s close friend and former de fact deputy, described the process as “walking a narrow path with people chucking rocks at us from both sides”. On the remain side of the Conservatives, the former education secretary Justine Greening called the Chequers plan “more unpopular than the poll tax”, saying May should start again from scratch. If anything can save the plan – and it’s an outside shot – it will be a combination of the hugely tight timetable and the fact that, as yet, no one else has yet produced a plan with a better chance of being accepted by parliament. What happens next? On 20 September, an informal gathering in Salzburg, Austria, will provide a snapshot of current EU thinking. Then, 10 days later, the Conservative conference could show the Chequers plan is holed below the waterline. If it survives these tests, the proposals will then reach the crucial EU summit Brussels on 18 October, with something final needed, at the very latest, in the next two months. PETER WALKER

Rees-Mogg said: “Mr Barnier is, as you would expect, extraordinarily charming. He and I found considerable agreement that Chequers is complete rubbish and we should chuck it and have a Canada-style free trade deal.

“Interestingly, Eurosceptics and M Barnier are in greater agreement than Eurosceptics and the government or M Barnier and the government. It is very encouraging.”

Over the weekend, Barnier said he “strongly opposed” the Chequers proposal to create a free trade area in goods between the EU and UK. The plan would also establish an unprecedented facilitated customs arrangement to avoid border checks while allowing the UK to have its own trade policy outside the customs union.

Barnier said the proposal would destroy the European project and he instead offered a Canada-style trade deal – which would significantly hinder the British economy, and offer no solutions to the Irish border issue – or a Norway-style model, in which the UK would have to drop key redlines, including on the free movement of people.

Rees-Mogg also defended Boris Johnson from Downing Street’s suggestion that the former foreign secretary’s recent column in the Daily Telegraph, in which he dismissed the problem of the Irish border as being exaggerated, had contained “no new ideas”.

“Downing Street only criticises politicians about whom it is afeared,” Rees-Mogg said. “If Mr Johnson were as weak as they seemed to say, when you said, ‘What do you think about Mr Johnson?’, they would say, ‘Who?’ But instead they go into these complex arguments that is not a sign of strength.”



With regard to the “backstop” solution that the UK has committed to find, to snap into place until a free trade deal or bespoke technological solution to avoiding a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is available, Rees-Mogg suggested the issue should not be allowed to poison the talks.

Asked whether the commitment to find a joint solution should be repudiated, the MP, who is chairman of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic MPs, said: “Yes. I think because the agreement has allowed these negotiations to drag on in a most unsatisfactory way.

“And the answer on the Irish border is simply not to put an Irish border in. Because the Irish government said they don’t want one, the EU said they don’t want one and the British government said they don’t want one. That seems to me to be a very good answer.”