Conservatives will lose next election unless Theresa May chucks Chequers, David Davis tells MPs
The Conservatives will lose the next election if Theresa May doesn't change her Brexit policy, ex-cabinet minister David Davis has warned in a stinging letter to Tory MPs.
The former Brexit Secretary has written to his colleagues predicting a "dire" result for the Conservatives unless the Prime Minister ditches her so-called Chequers proposal, which would see the UK follow Brussels' rules on goods and agri-foods.
Davis, who quit the Government in July in protest at the plan, called on May to back a looser arrangement with the EU, dubbed Canada+++, in order to deliver the "benefits of Brexit".
The MP dismissed suggestions that a Canada-style free trade deal would lead to a hard border being created between Northern Ireland and Ireland as a "red herring".
The letter was sent just hours before Davis' successor as Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, is due to update MPs on the progress of the negotiations with the EU.
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Davis wrote: "If we stay on our current trajectory we will go into the next election with the government having delivered none of the benefits of Brexit, with the country reduced to being a rule-taker from Brussels, and having failed to deliver on a number of promises in the manifesto and in the Lancaster House speech.
"This will not be a technicality, it will be very obvious to the electorate. The electoral consequences could be dire.
"So it is in both the Party's interest, and crucially the national interest, that we reset our negotiating strategy immediately and deliver a Brexit that meets the demands of the referendum and the interests of the British people."
On the Irish issue, Davis claims Chancellor Philip Hammond is "literally the only person raising the spectre" of a hard border, and lists May, Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has having all ruled one out.
"There will be no hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It's that simple," Davis wrote.
In an appeal to Brexiteer members of the Cabinet, such as environment secretary Michael Gove and work and pensions secretary Esther McVey, Davis wrote: "The Cabinet will need to decide its next course of action if Chequers – as seems likely – is rejected by the European Union. It is clear that a deal which honours the referendum result, is negotiable with the EU and which would reunite our party is within our grasp, with political will and imagination."
He added: "There is no need for either preposterous threats, in order to justify Chequers, of 'losing Brexit' or using Labour votes to get a discredited 'Chequers minus' through Parliament."
Davis' letter comes a week after former foreign secretary Boris Johnson urged May to "chuck Chequers" at a packed-out fringe rally at the Conservative party conference.
Read more: Boris Johnson savages Theresa May's Brexit plan