MPs send Brexit 'suggestions' to Theresa May

More than 60 Conservative MPs have signed a letter to Theresa May making a series of "suggestions" about the government's Brexit strategy.

The letter from the European Research Group says the UK should be free to negotiate and sign trade deals with other countries as soon as it leaves.

The MPs also want "full regulatory autonomy" for the UK after March 2019.

The European Research Group is seen as an influential Eurosceptic voice within the Tory party.

What is the European Research Group?
Post-Brexit UK won't be like Mad Max, says David Davis
The letter, signed by 62 MPs including several ex-ministers and former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, comes ahead of a meeting of the key Brexit sub-committee of senior ministers at Chequers on Thursday.

It sets out the MPs' "continued, strong backing" for the vision set out in Mrs May's Lancaster House speech in January 2017.

"We also want to share some suggestions for how it could be achieved," they add.

"The UK must be free to start its own trade negotiations immediately," the letter says.

"The UK should negotiate as an equal partner.

"Ministers may not want or be able to accept the EU's timing and mandates as fixed, and should be able to set out alternative terms including, for example, building an agreement based on our World Trade Organization membership instead."

Why the letter to May matters
Analysis by BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg

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In these torrid times it is not exactly unusual that documents emerge pushing one version of Brexit doctrine or another, that Tory tensions are spelt out in black and white.

The reason, however, why the letter from the Conservative Brexiteer backbenches matters is simple. It's about timing.

As we've discussed many times before, Theresa May's base in her party are the Eurosceptics.

With no majority, she knows that she needs to keep the dozens and dozens of Brexit-backing Tory MPs broadly with her for her own government's survival.

They have accepted some shifts from the government that they used to find intolerable - a Brexit departure lounge of a couple of years rather than a sharp exit, and a bill of tens of billions.

But they are not, as this letter makes clear, up for swallowing many more compromises when it comes to getting trade deals done immediately after Brexit.

It's not the detail that matters so much, as the fact that this letter has emerged now, just at the moment when Number 10 and cabinet Remainers were becoming increasingly hopeful that a compromise was in reach, with ministers meeting at Chequers on Thursday and the prime minister to set out a way through in a big speech next week.

Just when the PM and her team were readying themselves to sell an accommodation, a powerful faction has made it clear they are not up for budging very much.

Mrs May and the government have been under pressure to spell out in detail what they want the UK's future partnership with the EU to look like.

A key point being debated is how close it stays to the EU in order to avoid barriers to trade with the member states in years to come.

Some MPs want to stay as close as possible to the EU's single market and customs union arrangements, and last month Chancellor Philip Hammond said he hopes the UK and EU economies will only move "very modestly" apart after Brexit.

But others argue this could hamper the UK's ability to strike trade deals with other countries.

The MPs' letter says that the opportunities offered by leaving the EU can be grasped only if the UK can "negotiate trade deals with as many other countries as possible", and must be able to begin this process immediately.

Labour said the letter "exposes the deep divisions that run through the heart of this Tory government", and the SNP's Stephen Gethins said: "It is clear from this list of demands that the Tories don't want either a transition deal or a ‎future relationship with the EU."

Former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said it appeared the prime minister had "one arm tied behind her back by the Tory militants who are now nakedly acting like a party within a party".

Rival forecast published
In other Brexit news, a group of pro-Leave economists claim to have "comprehensively debunked" leaked government forecasts predicting a hit to the UK economy outside the EU.

The Whitehall forecasts - which predicted lower growth across the UK as a result of Brexit - sparked a row when they emerged last month.

Now Economists for Free Trade have published their "alternative" calculations, saying the civil servants' version ignored what they said were the "clear objectives" set out by Mrs May of free trade with Europe and the rest of the world.

Using government models, this would suggest a 2% rise in GDP over 15 years, the group claimed.

Mr Duncan Smith said the report "deserves to be taken very seriously".

source: www.bbc.com