Now it’s our turn to talk tough over Brexit trade
‘It is the point of the whole project’
BRUSSELS was sent a warning yesterday that Britain will not move an inch on its demands for full independence.
Boris Johnson’s chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, vowed that the country will not accept calls to stick to current EU standards.
He said the UK would walk away if it did not get what it wants – because the ability to make our own rules was ‘the point of the whole project’.
His intervention came after France warned the two sides would ‘rip each other apart’ in trade talks.
There are growing fears that it could be difficult to negotiate a comprehensive deal before the transition period ends in December.
The Government wants a Canadastyle free trade agreement, which allows for reductions in tariffs but does not require Britain to stick to EU standards on workers’ rights and environmental protection.
Speaking at the Universite libre de Bruxelles, in Brussels, Mr Frost said the UK would not accept EU supervision to create a ‘level playing field’.
Warning of the danger that democratic consent could ‘snap’ if the EU stuck to its guns, he asked how Europeans would feel if he were to demand they harmonise with British laws.
‘We bring to the negotiations not some clever tactical positioning but the fundamentals of what it means to be an independent country,’ Mr Frost said. ‘It is central to our vision that we must have the ability to set laws that suit us – to claim the right that every other non-EU country in the world has. So, to think that we might accept EU supervision on so called level playing field issues simply fails to see the point of what we are doing.
‘It isn’t a simple negotiating position which might move under pressure – it is the point of the whole project. That’s also why we will not extend the transition beyond the end of this year.
‘At that point we recover our political and economic independence in full – why would we want to postpone it? In short, we only want what other independent countries have.’
Mr Frost said the UK is seeking an ‘open and fair’ arrangement with the EU. ‘Boris Johnson’s speech in Greenwich two weeks ago set out a record of consistently high standards of regulation and behaviour in the UK, in many cases better than EU norms or practice,’ he said.
‘How would you feel if the UK demanded that, to protect ourselves, the EU dynamically harmonise with our national laws set in Westminster and the decisions of our own regulators and courts?
‘The more thoughtful would say that such an approach would compromise the EU’s sovereign legal order; that there would be no democratic legitimacy in the EU for the decisions taken in the UK to which the EU would be bound; and that such regulations and regulatory decisions are so fundamental to the way the population of a territory feels bound into the legitimacy of its government, that this structure would be simply unsustainable: at some point democratic consent would snap
– dramatically and finally. The comments come after French foreign minister Jean-Yves le Drian predicted a bruising battle on a post-Brexit deal.
Speaking at the annual Munich Security Conference, he made clear that Brussels will defend its interests when negotiations begin next month.
‘I think that on trade issues and the mechanism for future relations, which we are going to start on, we are going to rip each other apart,’ he said.
‘But that is part of negotiations, everyone will defend their own interests.’ Mr le Drian, an ally of president Emmanuel Macron, is the latest senior EU figure to warn that the negotiations will be difficult.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and chief negotiator Michel Barnier have both cast doubt on Mr Johnson’s aim to reach a comprehensive agreement by the end of the year.
The EU has repeatedly warned Britain cannot expect to enjoy continued ‘high-quality’ market access if it insists on diverging from EU social and environmental standards.
There is expected to be a particularly tough fight over fishing rights, with the EU insisting continued access to UK waters must form part of any agreement.
Mr Johnson, in turn, has said the UK will act as an ‘independent coastal state’ taking control of its own fisheries.
A No 10 spokesman said Mr Frost ‘will reflect on the institution of the EU and look towards the new relationship we are seeking to build’.
He added: ‘We want a relationship based on friendly co-operation between sovereign equals. We are not asking for anything special or bespoke.
‘We are seeking a deal that the EU has struck previously with other countries such as Canada.’
AFTER days of sabre- rattling from Brussels and Paris over forthcoming trade talks, Britain’s chief negotiator David Frost lived up to his name yesterday with an icecool response.
We would leave the EU on schedule by the end of the year, he said, set our own regulatory standards and will not accept supervision from the European Court.
In a speech, Mr Frost warned this was not merely a tactical position, it represented ‘the fundamentals of what it means to be an independent country’. As far as Britain is concerned, these trade talks are a negotiation between equals. We will not be pushed around.
For both sides these are opening salvoes. But Mr Frost has laid down a marker. Brussels is no longer dealing with a Prime Minister hamstrung by a Remain-dominated hung Parliament. This Government won a landslide majority on a promise to ‘get Brexit done’. Do not doubt it means business.