Davis pulls back from the brink

DAVID Davis yesterday secured a final date for severing Britain’s links to Brussels – as it emerged the UK could have to pay billions more to the EU for every year of delay.

The Brexit Secretary won his bitter tussle with Theresa May over the need to name the day when Britain will finally be free of Brussels rules.

The Prime Minister had refused to put an end date into a proposal designed to satisfy EU demands on the Irish border issue. Pro-Brexit ministers feared this could leave the UK bound by EU tariffs and rules

indefinitely while a solution to the border problem was found.

But, with Mr Davis threatening to quit, Mrs May inserted a target date at the end of 2021 – a year after the end of the existing transition deal.

The so-called backstop proposal is designed to reassure Brussels and Dublin that there will be no return to a ‘hard border’ in Northern Ireland if a customs solution is not found by the time the UK leaves. But the possibility of further delay to Brexit raised the prospect of further payments to the EU. During any backstop period, known as a ‘temporary customs arrangement’, the UK would also have to apply EU tariffs.

The backstop plan has dismayed some Brexiteers, who fear it is being used to keep the UK in the customs union by the back door.

In a letter to Tory MPs, the Prime Minister acknowledged it was ‘unpalatable’ but crucial to making progress in trade talks.