James Forsyth James Forsyth

The government needs to know what kind of Brexit deal it wants

Theresa May needs to invite the Cabinet down to Chequers to thrash out the government’s position on Brexit, I say in The Sun this morning. Remarkably, the Cabinet have never had a proper discussion about what the final deal with the EU should be. One senior Cabinet Minister tells me that ‘The million dollar question is the trade-off between regulatory compliance and market access and we haven’t had that discussion yet’.

This failure to talk is frustrating Cabinet Ministers, breeding distrust and contributing to the current break down of discipline within the government. As the policy isn’t decided yet, ministers keep trying to push it this way or that. At the same time, everyone is paranoid that it is being decided in a meeting they are not invited to—this was one of the major factors contributing to Boris’s pre-Florence outburst.

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