EU can’t bully UK on May’s Chequers Plan: Brexit secy

Birmingham, Oct. 1: Britain cannot be bullied, Brexit minister Dominic Raab said on Monday, sharpening the government’s criticism of the European Union for taunting Prime Minister Theresa May and souring difficult Brexit talks.

Ms May’s ministers have come out one by one at their party’s annual conference in the city of Birmingham to warn the EU that they will embrace leaving without a deal if the bloc fails to show “respect” in the talks to end Britain’s membership.

Mr Raab said he had called on the EU to match the “ambition and pragmatism” Britain had put forward with Ms May’s Chequers proposals, named after her country residence where an agreement with her ministers was hashed out in July. “Unfortunately, that wasn’t on display in Salzburg,” he said, describing a summit last month in the Austrian city where EU leaders rejected parts of the Chequers plan.

“Our prime minister has been constructive and respectful. In return we heard jibes from senior leaders and we saw a starkly one- sided approach to negotiation.” “What is unthinkable is that this government, or any British government, could be bullied by the threat of some kind of economic embargo, into signing a one- sided deal against our country’s interests,” Mr Raab said.

The Salzburg summit has become a byword for a sharp deterioration in the atmosphere of talks, when UK government officials felt Ms May was ambushed by the other EU leaders over Brexit.