Free movement is Europe’s totemic issue

It isn’t just Brexit that worries the government, as the cabinet meeting this week demonstrated. Much of it was taken up with a discussion of the upcoming Nato summit and Donald Trump’s visit. Ministers were told that Britain would be encouraging its allies to increase defence spending, with the aim of assuaging Donald Trump and strengthening the alliance. Michael Gove then asked what Britain was getting out of joining this lobbying effort: Boris Johnson responded that the goal was to ‘get through the week’. Gove dismissed that as a ‘lie back and think of England’ approach. Theresa May then took exception to the use of this phrase.

It doesn’t take much to cause an upset in cabinet nowadays. Secretaries of State have been arguing in the open with little regard to the government’s current stance. Ministers are openly speculating about whether any of their colleagues will resign over Brexit.

Mrs May’s approach of sidelining the Brexit inner cabinet, evenly divided between the two Tory positions, in the run-up to Chequers and, instead, meeting senior ministers individually hasn’t helped matters. The tone of these conversations riled leavers. One complains that ‘they are, basically, what can we give away?’

Mrs May is now preparing to publish a white paper next week outlining her negotiating position. She is seeking what one insider describes as an ‘evolved Mansion House’, a reference to her last big Brexit speech. This will see the UK, essentially, committing to following EU regulations on goods to ease trade. But I understand that this plan would see parliament in future altering the law where necessary to maintain alignment with EU rules.

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So Brexiteers will be in a position to argue that parliament is simply choosing to align with EU rules and could decide — if it deemed it worth the hit in terms of market access — not to implement a particular regulation.