MP calls for Johnson to resign after tearing into PM’s “crazy” customs plan
A Conservative MP has suggested Boris Johnson resign after publicly slamming the Prime Minister's plan for a future customs relationship as "a crazy system".
The foreign secretary has made no bones about preferring the second of the two options, known as 'max fac', in which trusted traders can move freely across borders, while Theresa May has been pushing for the customs partnership, in which the UK would collect tariffs on behalf of Brussels.
Read more: Cutting through the customs union noise: What are the two options on the table?
However in a bold step, Johnson has categorically rejected his boss's idea.
"If you have the new customs partnership, you have a crazy system whereby you end up collecting the tariffs on behalf of the EU at the UK frontier,” Johnson told the Daily Mail.
“If the EU decides to impose punitive tariffs on something the UK wants to bring in cheaply, theres nothing you can do. Thats not taking back control of your trade policy, its not taking back control of your laws, its not taking back control of your borders and its actually not taking back control of your money either, because tariffs would get paid centrally back to Brussels.”
The Cabinet minister added: “Its totally untried and would make it very, very difficult to do free trade deals.”
Johnson is not the first person to criticise the concept – backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg recently said it was "completely cretinous" and his European Research Group wrote to May urging her to drop the "undeliverable" idea or risk destroying her government.
However, this is the first time a Cabinet minister has so categorically attacked one of the two official options, which Number 10 has repeatedly said are both still in play.
Johnson's position has prompted suggestions he should quit his post.
Former attorney general, Tory MP Dominic Grieve, told the BBC: "Discussions within government are confidential… If you don't like the collective position, at that point you have to resign."
Johnson's "extraordinary bursts of behaviour" do not respect "normal propriety in government", he added.
However, the Prime Minister's spokesman this morning said she still had full confidence in her foreign secretary.
Asked how she felt to have one of May's positions described as "crazy", the spokesman noted that they were models as outlined in her Mansion House speech "which the entire Cabinet was signed up to".
"Following last weeks Cabinet sub committee meeting, it was agreed that there are unresolved issues in relation to both models and that further work is needed. The Prime Minister asked officials to take forward that work as a priority," he said.
Last week's Brexit war Cabinet ended in deadlock after new attendees home secretary Sajid Javid and defence secretary Gavin Williamson both sided with the Brexiteers on max fac, while chancellor Philip Hammond and business secretary Greg Clark backed the Prime Minister.
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