Theresa May has given her strongest hint yet that she is working on a compromise Brexit plan with Labour that covers customs and trade links with the EU.
During a grilling by MPs, the prime minister said she hoped “a deal can be done” with Jeremy Corbyn in cross-party talks to end the deadlock in parliament.
As Labour sources signalled that there had been “clear evidence” in the talks of a willingness to shift position, May refused to deny that a customs union between the UK and EU was at the heart of the discussions.
A spokesman for Corbyn revealed that the party’s demand had been a key issue in the progress made in talks with ministers.
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat in terms of the shifts in their position on a customs union,” he said.
And in her appearance before the Commons Liaison Committee, May suggested that definitions of a ‘customs’ arrangement with the EU were actively being discussed with Labour.
“One of the discussions we have been having ... is the whole question about customs arrangements for the future. Various terms are used in relation to customs. Sometimes people use different terms to mean the same thing,” she said.
“We are sitting down and talking about what it is that we both want to achieve in relation [to customs]. I think actually there is a greater commonality in terms of some of the benefits of a customs union that we have already identified between ourselves and the official opposition.”
The PM repeatedly refused to answer questions from Labour’s Yvette Cooper as to whether she had ruled out a common external customs tariff with the rest of the EU, a key Labour proposal that has upset Tory MPs.
But May also stressed that the political declaration already agreed with the EU allowed for a “spectrum” of outcomes on customs in the future trade talks.
At one point, she even raised the prospect of reviving her proposal on customs set out after a crunch meeting of Cabinet ministers last summer, a plan that would allow close cooperation with Brussels but which led Boris Johnson and David Davis to quit the government.
Brexiteer backbenchers fear the talks with Labour will result in a further ‘betrayal’ of the party and the PM had testy exchanges with Tory MPs on the Liaison Committee on Wednesday.
Asked why she no longer used her infamous phrase that “no deal is better than a bad deal”, May replied that the threat had since been made redundant because parliament would not accept a no-deal outcome and her own deal was a good one.
“When I first made that reference, I was talking in the abstract. It was in [her] Lancaster House [speech on Brexit], we are now no longer talking in the abstract.”
Earlier, a No.10 spokesman was asked if May would rule out a customs union. He replied that he did not want to ‘pre-empt’ the talks with Labour.
“I can’t predict, and you wouldn’t expect me to, where we will get to. We will have to wait and see,” he said.
A Labour spokesman said that the party had now seen “clear evidence that the government is prepared to explore shifts in its position”. When quizzed on whether the party could sign up to different description for the customs arrangement, he added: “I think the name isn’t the most important thing.”