Green Brexit is impossible to guarantee, EU warned

The parliament’s Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, told The Guardian: “Suggestions that the UK might seek to lower environmental standards after Brexit are alarming and contradict the commitments made by Prime Minister Theresamay in her Florence speech.”

They also showed why a future deal ‘must contain precise and detailed safeguards, with robust sanctions, to ensure the maintenance of high standards and a level playing field’, he said.

The EU’S environmental laws are among its most popular, with polls showing that over 80 percent of Britons support the same levels of protection — or higher— after Brexit.

During the referendum campaign, key government ministers said EU laws such as the birds and habitats directive were ‘spirit-crushing’ and would be scrapped.

But May has sought to defuse fears of conservation backsliding by trying to make the environment a selling point of leaving the bloc.

“Let me be very clear,” May said in a speech last month.

“Brexit will not mean a lowering of environmental standards.”

“We will use the opportunity Brexit provides to strengthen and enhance our environmental protections — not to weaken them.”

Last week, UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Michael Gove described ‘Green Brexit’ as ‘our chance to give the environment a voice in this time of national renewal.’

But the leaked submission said: “By definition, if the UK government fulfils its stated objective of leaving the European Union, then it will be impossible to ‘ensure’ the country maintains the ‘same … standards’ on environmental, health and food safety issues.”

Equally, “if the UK withdraws from the single market it will be impossible to fully ensure that the country’s environmental policies do not have a negative impact [on Europe]”, the paper added.

The Conservative group describes ensuring the closest possible ties with the EU after Brexit as being ‘of crucial importance’, partly to prevent