Remoaners hatch cross-party plot to HALT people’s Brexit and remain in single market
THE Liberal Democrats are to join forces with Tory “Remain” MPs, Labour and the Scottish National Party in a bid to ambush beleaguered Theresa May over Brexit.
Remain campaigner insists Tories have weakened Brexit plan
Secret talks were held between staff working for the MPs before the election and a plan drawn up to disrupt Mrs May’s Great Repeal Bill, which will turn EU law into British law.
Now they have vowed to capitalise on the Prime Minister’s weakened position since the General Election and plough ahead with plans to cause “gridlock” in Parliament unless Brexit Secretary David Davis makes key concessions.
It is understood they will now form a cross-party alliance to push for Britain to stay in the single market.
Forces both in the Commons and Lords are determined to make Brexit as difficult as possible or even to see it off altogether
It comes as the future of Brexit itself was put in doubt, with one Whitehall source saying that the Government’s plans were now as “good as dead” with almost no chance of a weakened PM being able to force legislation through both the Commons and Lords.
Before the election, the Lords passed the Article 50 Bill to start the formal procedure for leaving the EU but many of its members were not happy about it.
They felt they had to accept the will of the people, as expressed in the EU referendum, but Mrs May feared that when it came to accepting the Brexit terms 18 months later, their mood would have changed.
The election was supposed to solve this problem.
Not only would it guarantee the backing of the Commons – she would have a majority of Conservative MPs elected on her Brexit manifesto – but it would force the Lords to yield.
The Salisbury Convention, agreed in 1945 by Lord Salisbury, who was the leader of the Conservatives in the Lords, means that the upper house will not oppose measures that were promised in a governing party’s manifesto.
This was to get round the problem of a large Conservative majority in the Lords facing Clement Attlee’s Labour government in the Commons, which had been backed by a landslide democratic mandate.
But the convention supposes that the governing party in the Commons has won a majority of seats on its manifesto.
Mrs May failed to do so. That means not only will she – or her successor – find it harder to get the Brexit terms through the Commons but there is a real chance they will be opposed in the Lords too.
One party insider said: “The General Election was all about trying to strengthen her hand in the Brexit negotiations.
“Now she has emerged from it considerably weakened, with forces both in the Commons and Lords determined to make Brexit as difficult as possible or even to see it off altogether.”
Ministers are having to rewrite up to 1,000 laws because they make references to the rulings of EU regulators.
They plan to pass the new British versions through the Commons in batches of 75-100, using secondary legislation known as statutory instruments, which do not always require a Commons vote.
However, to prevent Eurosceptics tearing up EU rights after Brexit the rebel alliance will also demand guarantees that key consumer protections, such as compensation payments for delayed flights and caps on credit card fees, will not be overturned – even after Britain leaves the EU.
If ministers do not make the pledges, it’s believed that Remain MPs will use obscure parliamentary devices to disrupt the Brexit process.