Brexit latest: Britain will 'categorically' leave customs union as Theresa May prepares for fresh talks with EU

EU talks: Prime Minister Theresa May
PA
Robin de Peyer5 February 2018
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Downing Street has insisted the UK will “categorically” leave the customs union in a blow to advocates of a soft Brexit.

Theresa May and David Davis will hold talks with the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier today amid a Tory split over how Britain’s future relationship with the bloc will look.

The talks will mark the first time the Prime Minister and Brexit Secretary have met with Mr Barnier since EU leaders gave the green light for the second phase of negotiations to begin.

Mrs May has been under pressure to outline in more detail what she wants the future relationship between Britain and the EU to look like.

A split has emerged over whether Britain may remain in the customs union – a trade agreement which allows the exchange of goods without tariffs, and common tariffs on imports from outside the EU – after Brexit.

But Downing Street sought to calm the fears of backbench critics insisting the Government was committed to leaving the customs union as well as the single market.

"It is not our policy to be in the customs union," a source said.

The source said they would be seeking an "arrangement" with the EU to ensure trade remained as "frictionless" as possible after Brexit.

The meeting in Downing Street will be followed on Tuesday by talks on the transition deal aimed at avoiding a "cliff edge" break when Britain leaves the bloc in March 2019.

Mrs May has already made clear that she intends to push back against the bloc's demands that EU citizens who come to UK during the transition should enjoy the same rights as those who come before Britain leaves the EU on March 29 2019.

Ministers have complained said that the demand goes beyond what was agreed at the December summit but senior EU figures - including the European Parliament's Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt - insist it is "not negotiable".

The Government has also come under fire from its own backbenchers for agreeing that any changes to EU law which are passed during the transition will apply in the UK - even though Britain will have had no say in the decision-making process.

Meanwhile senior ministers are also preparing for the first discussions on Britain's future relationship with the EU by Mrs May's so-called "Brexit war cabinet".

Members of the Cabinet Brexit sub-committee will meet on Wednesday and then again on Thursday as they seek to thrash out an agreement on thorny issues like customs arrangements with the remaining EU27.

The subject is so sensitive that the Prime Minister has previously declined to authorise any formal discussion in the group.

Over the weekend, Home Secretary Amber Rudd brushed aside warnings from hardline Brexiteers that Mrs May could face a leadership challenge if she fails to deliver a "clean Brexit".

Ms Rudd said ministers would not be intimidated and insisted that there was greater agreement around the Cabinet table than MPs sometimes realised.

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