Jeremy Corbyn has demanded Theresa May “step aside” at let him negotiate the UK’s Brexit deal.
Speaking during PMQs on Wednesday, the Labour leader attacked the prime minister for the lack of progress in the negotiations with Brussels.
“The reality is the Cabinet is more interested in negotiating with each other than it is with the European Union,” he said.
Conservative cabinet ministers could not stop themselves laughing as Corbyn mocked them for being split on what sort of customs arrangement the UK should have with the EU.
“When the prime minister wrote at the weekend that she wanted ‘as little friction as possible’, was she talking about EU trade or the next Cabinet meeting?” the Labour leader joked.
“If the prime minister cannot negotiate a good deal for Britain why doesn’t she step aside and let Labour negotiate a comprehensive new customs union and living standards backed by trade unions and business in this country.”
Corbyn added: “Step aside and make way for those who will.”
But May accused Labour of having a Brexit policy that was not deliverable.
“They said they’d strike new trade deals but what do they want? They want to be in a customs union that ensures they could not strike new trade deals. Promise broken,” she said.
“There will be some who will say actually, forget about an independent trade policy. That is not the position of this government.”
Today David Davis announced the government would shortly produce a white paper outlining “detailed, ambitious and precise explanations” of the government’s Brexit positions - with less than 11 months remaining before Britain is due to quit the continental bloc.
It came after May’s Brexit “war cabinet” met again on Tuesday without reaching agreement on which of the two options for customs arrangements on the Irish border, the so-called “customs partnership” and “maximum facilitation” models, it will back.
The EU is putting pressure on Britain to present its preferred option at the upcoming meeting of the European Council in June, though Downing Street insists it will not put a timetable on the process.