May’s decision to leave the EU’s customs union, which sets tariffs for goods imported into the bloc, has become one of the main flashpoints in the Brexit debate in Britain, pitting companies and pro-EU campaigners against a vocal group of hardline eurosceptic MPs.
With the added pressure of trying to prevent the return of a “hard” border in Ireland and find something Brussels might agree to, May has delayed putting any firm plans for future customs arrangements on the table, hoping to plot a route that could at least please more than one side.
Just hours before May was due to meet her so-called Brexit war cabinet of 11 ministers, the pro-Brexit MPs called on her to drop one of her proposals which would see Britain essentially act as the EU’s tariff collector.
Members of the European Research Group, a group of Brexit MPs in May’s Conservative Party, said they were not issuing her an ultimatum with their demands, rather presenting their argument that such a customs partnership would not work.
“It is more of a statement of our position, with supporting arguments,” a member of the ERG said.
May is not only under pressure at home. She also faces increasingly urgent demands from Brussels to come up with a customs plan to avoid a return to a hard border between British-ruled Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. There are fears that reintroducing checks on what will be Britain’s only land border with the EU could reignite sectarian violence.
After losing her party’s majority at an ill-judged election last year, May has put off committing to a single plan, offering Brussels two options — the customs partnership or a technology-based streamlined customs arrangement, both of which EU negotiators have dismissed.
The easiest way to solve the problem, May’s critics say, is to stay in the customs union or negotiate a new one along the lines proposed by the main opposition Labour Party.
Her spokesman said earlier this week the government would “move forward with a single option”, but the question is when?
On Monday, her minister for the cabinet office, David Lidington, said it would most probably take a few weeks to decide on a final position, playing down any expectations of a quick decision at Wednesday’s meeting of the Brexit committee.
Brexit campaigners are hoping that the appointment of free-market advocate Sajid Javid as Home Secretary this week could shift the balance in their favour on the sub-committee.
But by leaving the question open May has been vulnerable to attempts both in the upper and lower houses of parliament to try to force the customs union back onto the agenda.
Her government was defeated in the House of Lords earlier this week, and has postponed votes in the House of Commons after several MPs in her party said they would support attempts to draw a commitment to stay in the customs union.
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