Brexit secretary Dominic Raab rejects rumours of snap general election
Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has ruled out general election in the autumn, saying rumours are "for the birds".
The Sunday Times reported this morning that Theresa May's team was plotting a snap general election to shore up public support for her Chequers plan in the wake of her disastrous Salzburg summit in which EU leaders roundly rejected her proposal as "unworkable".
A Downing Street spokesperson said: "It is categorically untrue that Number 10 is planning a snap election."
Raab blamed the summit's derailing on late changes made by the EU in the negotiations, and said the UK would "keep its cool" and "hold its nerve" to work towards a negotiable deal.
Speaking to the BBC, he said he the EU needed to be clearer on what its objections to Chequers were, because "no better option" was on the table.
Raab said the UK was "not going to be dictated to". "We are not going to flit from plan-to-plan like a diplomatic butterfly," he said. "The UK's priority is a negotiated outcome."
Under May's Chequers proposal the UK would stay closely aligned with the EU on goods but not services, and would stick to shared regulations. She has defended it as the only viable way to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland.
However, the EU has said it cannot accept Chequers because it undermines the Single Market to have a non-EU member ascribe to its rules without freedom of movement, a red line for May.
Raab also said a Canada-style trade deal was currently "off the table" because the EU caveat was a backstop on the Irish border, effectively keeping Northern Ireland in the customs union and breaking up the UK.
"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," he said.
"It's off the table in the terms that the EU would even plausibly at this stage would at least accept the nuts and bolts.
"What they are suggesting is that we would stay in a backstop arrangement with Northern Ireland which would be a part of the United Kingdom, subject to a wholly different economic machine. That can't be right."