Ross Clark
in the mutual interest of both parties. No one, though, needs to take note of Mr Henkel more than David Davis, our own lead Brexit negotiator.
As the German MEP says, the EU’s obstinate refusal even to discuss trade before it has been satisfied by the size of our “leaving bill”, is nothing more than bluster.
Behind the scenes, the EU’s team must be quaking at the thought of Britain walking away from negotiations. Commercial interests on mainland Europe are already growing restive at the thought of interruption of trade with Britain.
It is little wonder, when they face even more disruption to trade than do our own exporters – in 2016, the EU exported £318billion worth of goods and services to Britain, compared with £236billion worth which went in the other direction.
Prime Minister Theresa May made a very generous offer in her Florence speech in September of about £20billion to cover Britain’s liabilities regarding the pensions of EU staff and other things. But there is no reason whatsoever to offer anything like the sums which the EU is demanding from us to get trade talks going. Rather than let his own bluff be called, Davis now needs to call Barnier’s bluff.
Sooner or later the EU is going to sit down and do those
AS FOR the issue of the Irish border, there is a need for some kind of imaginative solution that will allow the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic to remain open, but some of the suggestions coming from the south of the border are bizarre.
No British government is going to agree to having an internal border between Northern Ireland and the British mainland. Nor are we going to agree to stay in the EU’s customs union because to do so would throw away one of the chief advantages of Brexit – the ability to forge our own trade deals with the rest of the world.
The underlying problem has been that many in the EU feel the need to be seen to inflict on Britain some kind of defeat. This is a sign of the EU’s own weakness. Many fear that if Britain is seen to do well outside the EU then other countries will want to leave, too.
We have already had strong showings from Eurosceptic parties and candidates in France and the Netherlands this year. Euroscepticism is still very strong in Denmark and Sweden. Trouble is, the EU doesn’t have many net contributors to its budget. It is an association made up of 16 net recipients propped up by 11 – soon to be 10 – paymasters.
In trying to punish Britain for leaving the EU is behaving like the old East Germany – trying to hold itself together by threatening deserters. It didn’t work for East Germany and it won’t work for the EU. The sooner we can get on with building a mutually beneficial economic relationship the better.
‘Trade deal is in our mutual interest’