The developments reportedly come after UK Prime Minister Theresa May said in an open letter to the nation that she would campaign “heart and soul” to get her Brexit deal through Parliament, even amid a stiff opposition within and beyond her own party.
The UK’s senior cabinet ministers are engaged in secret talks with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) over the so-called Plan B Brexit in case Prime Minister Theresa May’s blueprint on Britain’s exit from the EU is rejected, according to The Sun.
The hush-hush talks, which are specifically focused on creating a permanent customs arrangement, are expected to infuriate eurosceptic Tory MPs.
The DUP, in turn, insists that the government should renegotiate the Brexit deal, claiming that the rejection of the existing text would not necessarily lead to a ‘no-deal’ scenario and implies further work on the agreement.
In the June 2016 referendum, the UK voted to leave the EU, with almost 52 percent of those who voted supporting the move. The UK is expected to withdraw from the bloc in late March 2019 despite a spate of stumbling blocks that hamper the Brexit talks, including the Irish border, the proposed customs union, the Gibraltar issue and post-Brexit UK-EU economic relations.