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The prime minister agreed the plan on Tuesday with her cabinet ministers, including Boris Johnson, one of the leaders of the Brexit campaign, according to government officials.
But Mrs May was accused by some Conservative MPs of “bouncing” the cabinet into adopting the scheme, and others said they had been kept in the dark.
Senior EU officials also expressed doubts about the UK approach, warning that it diverges significantly from Brussels’ preferred outcome. “If this is it, we will have a crisis,” said one senior EU diplomat directly involved in talks.
The proposal, to be presented to a European Council meeting next month, is Mrs May’s attempt to flesh out her “backstop” promise that there would not be a hard border in Ireland after Brexit, even if trade talks fail.
Under her plan, the whole of the UK will be covered by the EU’s common external tariff, removing the need for a customs border in Ireland or between Ireland and the UK mainland.
Mrs May, speaking at an EU summit in Sofia, suggested that the UK would still be able to have its own “independent trade policy”, though it will be unable to negotiate different tariffs with countries that already have a deal with the EU. [...]
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