Remainer MPs bring 'ideas and solutions' to meeting with Barnier

“It’s all sorted, we’re staying,” joked the self-confessed arch-remainer Anna Soubry, a former Tory minister and latterly mischief-maker in chief on the Conservative backbenches.

Soubry was talking to reporters after a meeting with the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, on a wet evening in Brussels. She had travelled to the Berlaymont, the European commission’s HQ, with the Labour MPs Chuka Umunna and Chris Leslie, and David Cameron’s one-time attorney general Dominic Grieve.

Last week, the Leave Means Leave campaigners, including Digby Jones and the former Ukip leadership hopeful Steven Woolfe, had arrived with Marmite, cheddar cheese and some Shakespeare for their date with the Brussels negotiator. The “Remoaners”, as the Daily Mail would have them, were having none of that. “We’ve brought ideas and solutions,” they said.

Staying in the single market and customs union

The UK could sign up to all the EU’s rules and regulations, staying in the single market – which provides, free movement of goods, services and people – and the customs union, in which EU members agree tariffs on external states. Freedom of movement would continue and the UK would keep paying into the Brussels pot. We would continue to have unfettered access to EU trade, but the pledge to “take back control” of laws, borders and money would not have been fulfilled. This is an unlikely outcome and one that may be possible only by reversing the Brexit decision, after a second referendum or election.

The Norway model

Britain could follow Norway, which is in the single market, is subject to freedom of movement rules and pays a fee to Brussels – but is outside the customs union. That combination would tie Britain to EU regulations but allow it to sign trade deals of its own. A “Norway-minus” deal is more likely. That would see the UK leave the single market and customs union and end free movement of people. But Britain would align its rules and regulations with Brussels, hoping this would allow a greater degree of market access. The UK would still be subject to EU rules.

The Canada deal

A comprehensive trade deal like the one handed to Canada would help British traders, as it would lower or eliminate tariffs. But there would be little on offer for the UK services industry. It is a bad outcome for financial services. Such a deal would leave Britain free to diverge from EU rules and regulations but that in turn would lead to border checks and the rise of other “non-tariff barriers” to trade. It would leave Britain free to forge new trade deals with other nations. Many in Brussels see this as a likely outcome, based on Theresa May’s direction so far.

No deal

Britain leaves with no trade deal, meaning that all trade is governed by World Trade Organisation rules. Tariffs would be high, queues at the border long and the Irish border issue severe. In the short term, British aircraft might be unable to fly to some European destinations. The UK would quickly need to establish bilateral agreements to deal with the consquences, but the country would be free to take whatever future direction it wishes. It may need to deregulate to attract international business – a very different future and a lot of disruption.

Umunna said he believed Barnier had recognised the good that an activist Commons could do. “What they do recognise is that the UK legislature has a distinct and sometimes different voice from the UK executive and we’re not going to behave like some simple rubber-stamping mechanism,” he said. “Parliament is not just a bystander.

“It’s all well and good coming up with a withdrawal agreement with the government, but if they can’t get it through parliament that represents a problem for all involved.”

Asked whether the delegation was undermining Theresa May’s carefully thought through negotiation strategy, Grieve, who has been behind some of the prime minister’s more difficult times in the Commons in recent months, responded: “This is part of this monolithic view of Brexit and confrontational view of Brexit. If you view it as a confrontation, then you’re bound to end up with a bad outcome.”

Soubry said: “Both political parties have a number of backbenchers who feel differently from their frontbenches. It’s important that when we come and talk to people that they understand the peculiarities of British politics. Brexit has always divided and also united different groups within the two main parties.

“We have got to be realistic as a nation about all this. It doesn’t mean we can’t be ambitious, and that’s what I’m concerned about is how realistic we’re being as a country. And if we’re not being given the full picture by our government that’s really important.”

From Barnier himself, there wasn’t a word.