Row erupts over May’s Brexit security ‘threat’

PM accused of using co-operation as a bargaining tool as she triggers exit from EU

Britain has tried to downplay an apparent threat to pull security co-operation unless Brussels agrees to a trade deal as part of Brexit negotiations. In her letter to European Council president Donald Tusk triggering Article 50, British Prime Minister Theresa May warned that failure to reach a comprehensive settlement would lead to a weakening in collaboration in the fight against crime and terrorism.

Critics accused May of trying to make a trade-off between security and commerce.

But Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green said the two issues were mentioned side by side because they were “all bound up in our membership of the European Union”.

“It’s not a threat, I think that’s the misunderstanding,” he told BBC’s Newsnight. “It’s absolutely not a threat.”

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said the letter was “utterly scandalous” and a “blatant threat”, while Labour’s Yvette Cooper, who chairs the Home Affairs Committee, said the PM should not be using security as a “bargaining chip” in the negotiations.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said: “It is our clear desire and intention that we should continue to play a role as one of the indispensable guarantors of peace and stability in our continent.”

“We want to continue to work with our counterparts on defence cooperation, intelligence sharing, counter-terrorism, foreign policy coordination — and much else besides — on an intergovernmental level.

“At the same time, the PM is right to spell out her vision of a Britain outside the single market — and outside the EU legal order — but able none the less to continue the trading relationship that is so important for businesses and consumers both sides of the Channel.”

In a “historic moment from which there can be no turning back”, May set Britain on the path to life outside the EU when she triggered Article 50 yes- terday. She immediately ran into resistance from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Parliament over her goal of conducting negotiations on Britain’s trade relations with Europe at the same time as talks on arrangements for Brexit.

“The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union,” May told Parliament yesterday, nine months after Britain shocked investors and world leaders by unexpectedly voting to quit the bloc. “This is an historic moment from which there can be no turning back.”

May now has one of the toughest jobs of any recent British leader: holding Britain together in the face of renewed Scottish independence demands, while conducting arduous talks with 27 other EU states on finance, trade, security and other complex issues.

The outcome of the negotiations will shape the future of Britain's US$2.6 trillion ($3.7t) economy, the world's fifth biggest, and determine whether London can keep its place as one of the top two global financial centres. For the EU, already reeling from successive crises over debt and refugees, the loss of Britain is the biggest blow yet to 60 years of efforts to forge European unity in the wake of two world wars.

Its leaders say they do not want to punish Britain.

But with nationalist, anti-European Union parties on the rise across Europe, they cannot afford to give London generous terms that might encourage other member states to break away.