WATCH: 'It's for the birds' - Dominic Raab denies Number 10 planning November election
3 min read
Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab has dismissed as "for the birds" rumours that Downing Street is eyeing a November general election in a bid to shore up Theresa May's premiership.
Both the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday reported that Downing Street aides have begun planning a fresh vote following this week's bruising summit with EU leaders in Salzburg.
One adviser is said to have asked a Conservative strategist: "What are you doing in November — because I think we are going to need an election."
The paper reported that Mrs May could run on a more Eurosceptic ticket after ditching her beleaguered Chequers plan as part of efforts to give the Conservatives a working parliamentary majority.
But the reports were dismissed out of hand by the Brexit Secretary in an interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr on Sunday.
Mr Raab declared: "It's for the birds. It's not going to happen. Number 10 have made very clear that's nonsense."
'CARVE UP'
The Brexit Secretary also vowed that ministers would "hold our nerve, keep our cool" and "continue to negotiate in good faith" despite European leaders' "dogmatic rebuff" of Mrs May's Chequers Brexit plan.
But he insisted that neither the EU or Brexiteers had proposed "any other credible alternatives" to the Prime Minister's pitch, and downplayed the prospect of a looser, Canada-style free trade deal with the EU being talked up by Tory eurosceptics.
He told the Andrew Marr show: "We all want a free trade deal. The question is the terms. And if what you're referring to is the CETA plus or plus plus arrangement which is being bandied around I think people need to read the small print, not just of our proposals, but the EU's proposals.
"Because what they're suggesting is not just a free trade but for us to stay locked in or for Northern Ireland specifically to stay locked into the customs union.
"Now that would be a clear carve up of the United Kingdom in economic terms."
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt yesterday refused to rule out accepting such an agreement with the EU, telling the BBC he was "not dismissing anything".
But Mr Raab said: "It's off the table in the terms that the EU would even plausibly at this stage, at least, accept, because... we would stay in a backstop arrangement for Northern Ireland which would leave a part of the United Kingdom subject to a wholly different economic regime. That can't be right."
Mr Raab's outright rejection of another general election came as pro-Remain former cabinet minister Nicky Morgan also heaped scorn on the idea.
The senior Conservative MP said a nationwide vote would be "bad news all round".
She told Sky's Sophy Ridge: "I also think this sabre-rattling about a general election in order to get a majority, to potentially get things through, no, we’ve been there, we did that in 2017, it didn’t go so well, we didn’t get a majority, we lost 33 really good colleagues from our benches.
“We do not need to go through that again. It’s for MPs to step up to the plate and sort this out now."
PoliticsHome Newsletters
PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe
