UK’S role in European security ‘unconditional’: Foreign secy

JOHNSON DENIED BRITAIN WAS USING SECURITY COOPERATION AS A BARGAINING CHIP FOR AN EU TRADE DEAL.

Britain’s contribution to European security is “unconditional”, foreign secretary Boris Johnson told a French newspaper, denying the government had made a veiled threat to reduce cooperation if there was no post-brexit trade deal.

Prime Minister Theresa May, in a letter to the EU on Wednesday, said “our cooperation in the fight against crime and terrorism would be weakened” if Britain left the bloc without a new deal on trade and other matters.

Asked in an interview with France’s Le Figaro whether Britain was trying to use security cooperation as a bargaining chip to secure an EU trade deal, Johnson said: “No, not at all.”

“We consider the historic contribution of the UK to the secu unconditional,” he said in the interview published on Saturday. “We will maintain this contribution, which benefits all of Europe and the world. It’s in our interest and in the interest of others, and we hope this will be one of the planks of our deep and special partnership (with the EU).”

Earlier, Brexit minister David Davis had also said that May’s words did not amount to a threat.

“This is a statement of the fact of us (Britain and the EU) ... if we don’t get a deal. It’s an argument for having a deal,” he said.

Despite these assurances, May’s words were widely interpreted as a veiled threat on both sides of the English Channel.

UK TO GIBRALTAR: WE WILL PROTECT YOU IN BREXIT TALKS WITH EU

Britain on Saturday reassured Gibraltar that it will protect the territory’s interests in upcoming Brexit talks amid a dispute with Spain that underscores the complications of Britain’s EU divorce.

Spain has long sought to regain control of Gibraltar, an enclave of 32,000 people on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula that was ceded to Britain