MICHAEL Gove joined secret cross-party talks to address the failings of Brexit, according to reports.
Senior members of Labour’s front bench, including shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, were also present at the talks at Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire, The Observer reported.
The secret talks were to address the issues which the UK is facing due to Brexit and how to find solutions which are in the national interest.
The meeting, held under the title “How can we make Brexit work better with our neighbours in Europe?”, also included the heads of some of the UK’s biggest banks and business.
The Observer reported that papers from the summit spoke of how the Brexit deal might “be optimised now and amended later”, and asked how trade between the UK and European bloc could “be better managed”.
With both Labour and the Tories having firmly ruled out rejoining the EU, the summit focused instead on making Brexit work and included prominent Leave and Remain campaigners.
Senior Labour figures are said to be concerned that Brexit will hamper their chances of success in government if they take power after the next General Election.
Other figures at the summit, according to the Observer, were Goldman Sachs director and former chief Brexit negotiator Oliver Robbins, GlaxoSmithKline chair John Symonds, top Nato figure Angus Lapsley, Labour grandee Peter Mandelson, former Tory party leader Michael Howard, and former Tory chancellor Norman Lamont.
It comes as record levels of people in the UK turn against the idea of Brexit, according to polling.
In January, YouGov released a poll of some 616 Britains who had voted for Brexit in 2016 but since changed their minds.
The firm found a general sense that things have gotten worse since the EU referendum was the primary factor for people turning against Brexit, with 25% of people citing it as their reason for a change of heart.
Almost one in five (19%) said the state of the economy, with rising costs and bills, had led them to U-turn on their Brexit vote.
And one in 10 (11%) said it was because they felt they had been lied to by the Leave campaign, or that the results of Brexit had not been what they were expecting.
