Theresa May’s team ‘plotting snap general election’ for November

She said she still believed a good deal with Britain was possible, but that France should get ready for the possibility of a “no deal” and would introduce legislation in November to that effect.

But London also wants to be able to sign its own trade deals with other countries, which could mean imposing different tariffs on products from outside the EU.

At a summit in Austria on Thursday, EU leaders said they would push for a Brexit deal next month but rejected May’s “Chequers” plan, saying she need to give ground on trade and arrangements for the United Kingdom border with Ireland.

The 6 minutes speech prompted a swift reaction by the financial markets, as the pound suffered its largest daily drop of 2018 against the euro and the dollar.

While the EU’s average tariff rate for third countries is low – around 1.5 percent – they are bigger in certain strategic sectors: for cars, the rate is 10 percent.

May’s former Brexit minister David Davis has said up to 40 lawmakers from the Conservative Party will vote against her Brexit plans.

With time running out, the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said the “moment of truth” will come at next month’s European Union summit in Brussels, when it should become clear whether the two sides can reach an agreement. But both London and Brussels have pledged to avoid any physical infrastructure, a so-called “hard border”. He didn’t explain how in any detail or make any counter-proposal. The EU’s view of the Chequers plan was bluntly and clearly expressed in Salzburg yesterday, but should not have come as a surprise to the UK Government, given that it was not a new position.

“Him [Olly Robbins] and others, the whole team, really need to look at this – why we were on Chequers when Chequers so obviously wasn’t going to cut the mustard”.

“If all conventional roads lead to a hard no-deal Brexit, the notion of Parliament exerting control and forcing another referendum on us would begin to look not wholly fanciful”, Peston wrote in the Spectator.

Theresa May bluntly dismissed Michel Barnier’s Northern Ireland border proposals, irritating European Union leaders before the summit had even started.

Speaking to Andrew Castle on LBC, Mr Bone said it was “quite right” that Theresa May was angry with the European Union. “What we say is we must prepare for that”, she added.

A new YouGov poll published Sunday in the Observer showed 86 percent of Labour Party members would support a public vote on the outcome of Brexit negotiations. The UK expects the same. “A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it”, she said.

“What comes out of conference I will adhere to. Until we do, we can not make progress”.

“We can not accept anything that does not respect the result of the referendum, just as they can not accept anything that is not in the interest of their citizens”.

On Friday, Mr Tusk said Britain had known about the EU’s reservations over the Chequers plan for weeks.