Ministers have been told to prepare Britain for a hard Brexit in two years to allow Theresa May to walk away from EU negotiations without a deal.
Senior sources say that Whitehall has been instructed to upgrade the UK’s customs, immigration and regulatory agencies to ensure that “Britain can still be governed” by April 2019 when the Article 50 process will end.
David Davis, the Brexit secretary, updated cabinet on the plans yesterday telling ministers that their departments needed to “understand the challenges ahead”.
The decision to prepare for a hard Brexit is expected to cost billions of pounds and result in:
● A new IT system capable of dealing with 390 million customs declarations every year for goods crossing in and out of the