Minister warns no-deal Brexit must not lead to ‘six mile queues at Dover’

Unwelcome: a queue of lorries waiting at Dover
Twitter/Rachel Harper

Brexit must not lead to “six mile queues at Dover”, a minister warned today amid deep rifts at the heart of Government over Britain’s future trade links with the EU.

Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt stressed most Tory MPs want the UK’s departure from the EU to be based on “practicalities” supported by businesses and other organisations.

Mr Burt spoke out just hours after a report that civil servants have been drawing up scenarios for a “Doomsday Brexit” that would leave the country short of medicine, fuel and food if it crashes out of the EU with no deal.

The Sunday Times said models for mild, severe and “Armageddon” reactions to no-deal exits were created, with a source saying that even the severe scenario saw the Port of Dover “collapse on day one”.

Ministers sought to downplay the report as inaccurate.

However, Theresa May is facing a showdown with MPs, including her own Cabinet which is bitterly split, over Britain’s future trade relationship with the EU, with a vote expected to be held shortly on whether the UK remains in a customs union.

Mr Burt voiced the views of several other ministers, and parliamentary private secretaries, who have so far avoided rocking the boat over Brexit.

“We will be judged not on how we voted in the referendum but on whether there will be six mile queues at Dover, and whether the thing will work,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour.

“Most of my colleagues want to see something where the practicalities are such that it will be endorsed by third parties, and people will say this is a practical way to resolve the issues that have been created by the people’s decision to leave.”

Few junior ministers who oppose a hard Brexit are yet to speak out publicly against it. However, Justice minister Phillip Lee warned earlier this year that there was a “serious question” as to whether Brexit could “legitimately” go ahead if predictions that the country would be worse off under all scenarios were accurate.

The Prime Minister was today hosting business leaders in Downing Street as the Government seeks to bridge its internal divisions over Brexit ahead of an EU summit in Brussels at the end of the month.

As the Government struggles to find a post-Brexit solution to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster has threatened to pull out of the deal propping up Mrs May’s Government if the province ends up being treated differently from the rest of the UK.

One idea floated would see Northern Ireland covered by a joint regime of UK and EU customs regulations, allowing it to trade freely with both, plus a 10-mile wide “special economic zone” on the border.

Cabinet ministers were last month tasked with analysing two main options, a “customs partnership” proposal that would see Britain continue to collect tariffs on behalf of the EU and the technology-based “maximum facilitation” — or “max fac”.

Brussels has already rejected both schemes, with chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier saying neither was “operational or acceptable”.

A temporary solution that would keep the UK in its entirety aligned to EU customs rules until 2023 is also “not feasible”, a senior EU official warned.

“If they come to the point with a proposal that is negotiable, and that would not be limited in time, we have a good basis to limit the worst damage of Brexit,” the official said. “But we are not at that point.

“As a backstop it’s not feasible.”

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