REJOICE! WE’RE ON OUR WAY
Historic handshake that sealed a vital step in our exit from the EU
BRITAIN took a huge step toward regaining control of its borders, laws and money yesterday after Theresa May secured a Brexit breakthrough.
Following days of fraught negotiations, she flew to Brussels before dawn to seal a deal that opens the door to trade talks. It will halt the free movement of migrants from the EU and, in time, end the jurisdiction of European judges over UK affairs.
The Prime Minister said the agreement would create a Brexit dividend unlocking billions for extra spending on the NHS, schools and housing.
Lord Lamont, a prominent Brexiteer and former chancellor, said Mrs May had ‘confounded the doomsayers and
pessimists’. But the Cabinet is now braced for a battle before Christmas over the shape of Britain’s future relationship with Europe. This will pit Brexiteers Boris Johnson and Michael Gove against Remainers led by Philip Hammond.
While congratulating Mrs May, Mr Johnson laid down a marker for battles to come, saying her guarantee of ‘full alignment’ with some EU rules to help resolve the Irish border issue must be compatible with ‘taking back control’.
Yesterday’s deal involves a divorce payment of up to £39billion – higher than Eurosceptic ministers wanted, but much less than the £52billion originally demanded by some in Brussels.
Jean-Claude Juncker concluded the deal with Mrs May over a breakfast of crusty bread, champagne and orange juice. The European Commission president confirmed ‘sufficient progress’ had been made on divorce terms to open talks on a trade deal.
The agreement still has to be signed off by EU leaders at a summit in Brussels next week. And the EU fired an immediate warning shot yesterday, saying the next stage of talks would prove ‘much harder’ and that trade negotiations could not start until February.
Mrs May said she was optimistic about the prospect of agreeing a comprehensive trade accord with the EU in the coming months. Key elements of the deal include:
Guarantees for three million EU citizens in this country and one million Britons abroad;
A severely limited role for the European Court of Justice;
A two-year Brexit ‘implementation period’.
A proposed cut-off date of March 29, 2019, after which new arrivals from the EU will lose the automatic right to work, claim benefits and stay.
Yesterday’s breakthrough came after what Downing Street acknowledged had been a tough 24 hours for Mrs May.
The Prime Minister carried out a string of negotiations by phone with Mr Juncker, Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and DUP leader Arlene Foster. She had vetoed the original deal on Monday. After two hours sleep, Mrs May then left for Brussels before 4am to sign the deal with Mr Juncker.
The pound climbed to a six-month high yesterday as business welcomed the certainty provided by the agreement and the prospect of a free trade deal to come. The Institute of Directors described the deal as an ‘ early Christmas present’ for business.
The Prime Minister said the deal had required ‘give and take on both sides’. On the divorce bill, which is significantly lower than the £50 billion reported by the BBC last month, Mrs May said: ‘After some tough conversations, we have now agreed a settlement that is fair to the British taxpayer. It means that in future we will be able to invest more in our priorities at home, such as housing, schools and the NHS.’
Environment Secretary Michael Gove said the agreement represented a ‘significant personal achievement’ for Mrs May.
Boris Johnson congratulated Mrs May for opening the path to trade talks while ‘remaining true to the referendum result’.
The Cabinet is due to meet before Christmas to discuss a vision for its future relations with the EU. Foreign Secretary Mr Johnson is expected to underline his opposition to any move that could leave the UK tied to Brussels after Brexit.
Iain Duncan Smith, who warned Mrs May she might have to walk away from the talks, gave the deal a cautious welcome. The former Tory leader said: ‘For all their bluster it is now quite clear that the EU really want a free trade agreement with us and are fearful for the consequences for their own economies if they do not get one.
‘That puts us in a strong position as we go into phase two.’
Some Eurosceptics hinted they would press to get elements of the deal, such as the role of the ECJ, watered down further.
European Council president Donald Tusk warned the ‘most difficult challenge was still ahead’. He added: ‘We all know that breaking up is hard. But breaking up and building a new relation is much harder.
‘Since the Brexit referendum, a year and a half has passed. So much time has been devoted to the easier part of the task.’
His warning was echoed by senior colleagues who poured scorn on the Cabinet’s negotiating stance and said trade talks would not start until February at the earliest.
They said demands set by British ministers were ‘inconsistent and contradictory’ and that a trade deal could potentially take years.
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said the UK would be offered only a limited trade deal, similar to that struck between the EU and Canada.
The Prime Minister has said such a deal was not good enough amid concerns it could limit the City’s ability to operate freely across Europe.
The DUP said it reserved the right to veto the final agreement.
APART from the days after the referendum, when their mindless predictions of Armageddon failed to materialise, it is hard to remember a week when the liberal-Left chattering classes were left with quite so much egg on their faces.
After Monday’s glitch in the Brexit talks, these champions of the Remainer cause devoted hours of airtime and oceans of ink to informing the public that Theresa May had suffered a humiliation from which she might never recover. The BBC, The Guardian and the Japanese- owned Financial Times loftily opined that the talks could be deadlocked for months, or perhaps for ever.
As for the Prime Minister, she was portrayed as a feeble hostage to the Democratic Unionist Party, helpless to prevent Brussels from walking all over her. Some even said she could be ousted within days.
What a difference a week makes! After her flight to Brussels in yesterday’s small hours, Mrs May has returned with a breakthrough to knock her critics sideways.
Yes, there has been give and take, as in any negotiation. But on all three matters the EU insisted should be settled before any trade talks, she has won concessions most thought miles beyond our reach.
Take the divorce bill, only days ago estimated by some at more than £50billion – while the FT assured its readers in the summer that the EU would settle for nothing short of £90billion.
Under yesterday’s agreement, the bill comes in at between £ 35billion and £39billion, to be paid only in the event of a trade deal. To put this in perspective, it is several billion less than the Royal Bank of Scotland bailout.
The sum is also well under three years’ worth of our gross contributions to the EU budget – money that Remainers would have us carry on handing over to Brussels until the end of time. While they scream blue murder about the Brexit bill, they omit to mention that the Bremain bill would be literally infinite.
Or take citizens’ rights – guaranteed under yesterday’s pact for both EU nationals in the UK and British expats on the continent. At the outset of the talks, Brussels was insisting the European Court of Justice should be the final arbiter of citizenship disputes in perpetuity.
Yet under hugely significant concessions, our own Supreme Court will now have the last word on whether to refer such cases to the ECJ – while the European judges’ role will end totally after eight years.
As for the Irish border – an issue whose importance has been hugely exaggerated – Mrs May went into the talks wanting three guarantees: No ‘ hard border’ between Northern Ireland and the Republic; no change to the province’s status as a full member of the UK; and nothing that will compromise the peace process. She appears to have achieved all three.
True, nobody seems to know precisely what the pact means when it refers to full regulatory ‘alignment’ between the UK and the EU in areas affecting Ireland. What we do know, because the EU’s Michel Barnier spelt it out, is that nothing agreed yesterday will prevent Mrs May from keeping her promise to pull out of the single market and the customs union.
Indeed, all her objectives – regaining control of our borders, laws and trade arrangements – remain intact.
Meanwhile, she has delighted the City, calmed DUP jitters and united the whole Cabinet and most Tory MPs behind her.
As for the Opposition, changing its stand on the EU from one day to the next, it remains as chaotic a shambles as ever.
Yes, there are sure to be setbacks ahead. But after Mrs May’s triumph, there can be no stopping Brexit now.
On Monday, the Prime Minister’s carping critics told us she had never looked weaker. Today she has never looked stronger.