THERESA May has been told to get a grip of her “cabinet of chaos” after more confusion and contradictions over the UK Government’s approach to Brexit.
The SNP demanded the Prime Minister take control after members of her cabinet appeared to be using her two-week holiday in Italy to float ideas of their own about life outside the EU.
Downing Street was forced to insist free movement of people would end with Brexit in March 2019 after Chancellor Philip Hammond suggested immigration could “remain very similar”.
His fellow Remain-supporter, Home Secretary Amber Rudd, also said EU citizens would be free to come to the UK during the post-Brexit transition period provided they registered.
With little time to negotiate a bespoke transition arrangement for the two or three years after Brexit, a senior Cabinet source said an “off-the-shelf” model might be adopted.
The suggestion was the UK would be better aping Norway or Switzerland to maintain single market and customs union access, rather than waste time on a tailored temporary phase.
However on Sunday the Brexiteer International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said there was no cabinet agreement on future immigration arrangements, and continued free movement would “not keep faith” with what people voted for in last year’s referendum.
Amid claims of a cabinet split, Number 10 sought to clarify the position by dismissing talk of an off-the-shelf transition, and insisting free movement would end with Brexit.
A spokesman said: “Free movement will end in March 2019. Last week, the Home Secretary said there will be a registration system for migrants arriving post-March 2019.
“Other elements of the post-Brexit immigration system will be brought forward in due course. It would be wrong to speculate on what these might look like or to suggest that free movement will continue as it is now."
He added: “We are not looking for an off-the-shelf model [for the transitional period]. Precisely what the implementation model will look like is up for negotiation.”
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt insisted the cabinet was “absolutely united” behind a “gradual, business-friendly Brexit” that avoided a “cliff edge” change in immigration policy.
But MP Peter Grant, the SNP’s Europe spokesman, said the catalogue of contradictions showed the Tories were out of control on Brexit.
He said: "The Prime Minister is presiding over a Cabinet of chaos and she urgently needs to rein in her squabbling ministers, who are only adding to the already significant challenges posed by Brexit.”
Mr Grant also mocked Mr Hammond for appearing to flip-flop on his previous warning that the UK could become an aggressive low-tax rival to the EU after Brexit, after the Chancellor told French media the UK would now have a “recognisably European” economic model.
Mr Grant said: “We’ve grown used to seeing ministers jockeying for position by briefing against one another but the Chancellor has gone one better and directly contradicted his own previous comments.
“While the EU negotiators are losing patience with the UK’s failure to know what it wants from Brexit, we have cabinet ministers engaged in a summer of irresponsible, damaging and often contradictory speculation that nobody can trust.”
Labour’s Peter Dowd said the government had “broken down into farce”, while LibDem leader Sir Vince Cable welcomed Mr Hammond’s U-turn on the UK becoming a tax haven.
Meanwhile the Archbishop of Canterbury predicted the chances of Brexit being negotiated by March 2019 were “infinitesimally small” in the current political atmosphere.
The Most Rev Justin Welby, who sits in the House of Lords, said major decisions should be “taken off the political table” and referred to a cross-party or expert commission instead.
Downing Street said it had “no plans” for such a commission.
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