Brexit talks hit fresh wall after Theresa May refuses to keep UK in customs union until a deal is struck

BREXIT talks last night hit a fresh brick wall after No10 refused a renewed EU demand for Britain to stay in a customs union indefinitely until a future trade deal is struck.

Theresa May summoned senior Cabinet ministers to No10 last night in the hope of asking them to sign off a draft deal.

But a breakthrough on the key impasse issue failed to materialise, despite good progress on all other areas.

The Sun understands the last major obstacle for the divorce element of a deal - the Withdrawal Agreement - is Britain’s insistence that staying in a customs union as a backstop plan to keep the Irish border open must be time limited.

Brexiteers have insisted to No10 that the UK must break free from it and be able to sign trade deals elsewhere in the world by the next general election in 2022.

With just five days to go before a “moment of truth” EU summit next Wednesday, negotiations in Brussels - lead by PM’s chief EU advisor Olly Robbins - will now continue through out the weekend.

But gloomy Mrs May also told guests at a Downing Street reception yesterday that there may well be no deal by the summit either, as talks on the backstop “are likely to continue until November”.

One source said “firm views” on the need for a time limit were expressed by Cabinet ministers at the No10 meeting last night, which was due to last an hour but overran by 40 minutes.

The PM has also been warned that some Leave-backing Cabinet ministers will resign if she caves in to the lynchpin Brussels demand.

But a No10 source last night insisted: “The PM’s commitment and need for a time limit remains.

Another Cabinet source added: “There has not been as much progress made as was hoped by now”.

Leaving the meeting last night, May loyalist Chief whip Julian Smith said: “The PM and the Government are conducting a complex negotiation that is going well and we should be backing the Prime Minister”.

Also there was Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Environment Secretary Michael Gove, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, Business Secretary Greg Clark, Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley and Attorney General Geoffrey Cox.

Meanwhile, Britain’s former ambassador to the EU launched a fresh withering broadside on Mrs May for showing “culpable naivety” in the Brexit negotiations.

Sir Ivan Rogers, quit after a run-in with Downing Street in 2017, said the EU had the UK “against the wall”.

Mrs May’s bid to placate hardline Tory Brexiteers means she has boxed herself in with red lines before talks even begun, he argued in a lecture at Cambridge University.

As Tory infighting intensified again yesterday, Sir John Major accused Brexiteer Tories of “bullying” Theresa May.

The former Tory PM told the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast: “I have great sympathy for her plight and I think the way she is being treated by some of her colleagues is absolutely outrageous”.

And a senior backbencher claimed it would take just two weeks to oust her as PM.

Former 1922 Committee secretary Mark Pritchard reignited No10’s fears that a new putsch against the PM was imminent with an incendiary tweet.

Instead of an exhaustive nine week-long contest to pick a new Tory leader that most Tory MPs expect, grandee Mr Pritchard said that it “need not take more than 2 working weeks - 4 days in Commons (if needed) and 6 days with membership”.

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