Divided Cabinet united against EU's Irish border plan as Juncker warns of no deal Brexit

Britain’s divided Cabinet is united in its rejection of the European Commission’s plan for a backstop clause to prevent a hard border in Ireland, The Telegraph has learned, as Jean-Claude Juncker warned that a no deal Brexit was still a possibility.

“I know of no member of the Cabinet in London who would be prepared to sign up to the Commission text. And I include the most ardent of Remainers in that,” a senior Cabinet source said.

“Unionism is fundamental to how the Conservative party sees itself,” the source said of the EU plan which would create border checks between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain rather than on the Irish border.

The clause was rejected by Theresa May, who offered Brussels the alternative of aligning the whole of the UK with EU customs rules if the preferred solutions of a free trade agreement or technological solutions fail.

Leaked conclusions for the European Council summit of EU leaders in Brussels next week express concern at the lack of “substantial progress” over the vexed issue and call for work on it to be accelerated.

The source admitted the commission had serious questions over the customs plan but had not rejected it. Work on finding a solution was likely to continue through the summer.

The EU has set an October deadline for the final Brexit withdrawal agreement to be agreed, which would afford EU governments, Westminster and the European Parliament time to ratify the deal ahead of the 29 March 2019 deadline.

There had been no Cabinet discussions over extending the Article 50 deadline, the Cabinet source said before predicting “Brussels would have a nervous breakdown” if such a request was made.  The prime minister viewed it as her “democratic duty” to deliver the referendum result.

On a visit to Dublin on Thursday, Jean-Claude Juncker said any British efforts to isolate Ireland from the rest of the EU would be doomed to failure and raised the prospect of a no deal Brexit.

The president of the European Commission said, “As the clock ticks down we must prepare for every eventuality, including a no deal.”

“This is neither a desired or a likely outcome but it is not an impossible one and we are getting ready just in case,” Mr Juncker said in a speech to the Irish parliament.

The senior Cabinet source said that no deal would be “no good for anybody”, especially when it came to Europe’s security.

“If we were, God forbid, to get into the situation where you had a sour divorce and an acrimonious future relationship," the source said, "That's a complete lose-lose situation."

"The only people who'd have a smile on their faces are people in the Kremlin and elsewhere who wish European democracies ill,” the source added. 

The source warned that it would be very difficult for the House of Commons to back the final Brexit withdrawal agreement unless it was accompanied by a “substantive and detailed” political declaration on the UK-EU future trading relationship.

With time running out before the deadline a detailed annex to the deal appears unlikely but the source said that if parliament rejected the agreement, then the UK would not pay the Brexit bill of up to £39 billion.

“These things hang together politically,” the source said.