EU TELLS MAY BREXIT PLAN ‘WILL NOT WORK’
WITH DEADLINE LOOMING, EUROPEAN LEADERS REJECT CHEQUERS PROPOSAL
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May was humiliated by European Union leaders in Salzburg Thursday as they unanimously rejected her Brexit plan as unworkable.
May was left visibly furious after Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said Brexit had been sold to the British public by “liars” and that May needed to come up with “new propositions” if she wants to salvage a deal.
She had gone to Austria expecting encouragement from her fellow leaders, but instead Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said key parts of the plan “will not work” in a brutal assessment of May’s proposal.
His rejection of Chequers, as the plan is known after the prime minister’s country estate where it was hatched, appeared to rattle May, who faced the media less than 10 minutes later and pronounced: “Let nobody be in any doubt: as I have always said, we are preparing for no deal, so that if we get to the position where it’s not possible to reach a deal then the British people can be confident that we will have done what is necessary to ensure we make a success of leaving the EU.”
“We are going to leave the European Union, we will leave on March 29, 2019 and there will be no second referendum.”
Downing Street signalled Thursday night that May could offer concessions over regulatory controls for goods crossing the Irish Sea in a move that her critics are likely to characterize as a climbdown.
It comes in the run-up to what seems certain to be a turbulent Conservative party conference at which May will face intense pressure from Eurosceptics to abandon Chequers in favour of a Canada-style Free Trade Agreement with the EU.
Her premiership could also come under threat if MPs who have lost confidence in her ability to deliver Brexit decide the only way to change direction is to change leader.
May was given just 10 minutes to convince the other 27 leaders of the merits of Chequers during a dinner on Wednesday night, but her efforts fell on deaf ears as she was forced to listen to Macron and others lining up to savage it Thursday.
Macron said there was “consensus” among the EU27 that the U.K.’s proposals were “not acceptable” in their current form.
In an attack clearly aimed at Boris Johnson and the leaders of the Leave campaign, he went on: “Brexit is the choice of the British people and it is a choice pushed by certain people who predicted easy solutions.
“Brexit has shown us one thing ... those who said you can easily do without Europe, that it will all go very well, that it is easy and there will be lots of money, are liars. This is all the more true because they left the next day, so they didn’t have to manage it.”
Tusk, who held “frank” face-to-face talks with May, said: “Everybody shared the view that while there are positive elements in the Chequers proposal, the suggested framework for economic cooperation will not work, not least because it is undermining the single market.”
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said “substantial progress” was needed in the coming weeks.
Macron seized control of the agenda by insisting Tusk retract an announcement of a special EU summit in November to thrash out the final details of a Brexit deal. Instead, Tusk said the regular meeting of EU leaders on Oct 18 would be “a moment of truth.”
He said another summit would be held in November only if “maximum progress” had been made by October.
May responded by challenging the EU to come with a workable alternative to Chequers as she made it clear a no-deal Brexit was now a step closer.
She said: “Concerns have been raised. I want to know what those concerns are. On the economic partnership, there is no solution that will resolve the Northern Ireland border which is not based on the frictionless movement of goods.
“Our White Paper remains the only serious and credible proposition on the table for achieving that objective.”
May insisted she would be sticking to her guns, saying she had always expected “negotiations would be tough and tactics would be used.” She said the U.K. would “shortly” come forward with new proposals on the socalled “backstop” arrangements for Northern Ireland if no agreement on the province is reached.
It will consist of enhanced regulatory — but not customs — checks for goods crossing the Irish Sea.