NOW IT’S LE SNUB
No Deal on a knife edge, but Macron and Merkel won’t take Boris’s calls
NO DEAL is now ‘ very, very likely’, Boris Johnson last night warned as Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel refused even to speak to him.
The Prime Minister will decide tomorrow whether to lead Britain out of the European Union without a trade deal.
He declared yesterday that leaving without an agreement would be ‘wonderful for the UK and we’d be able to do exactly what we want’. Ahead of the looming deadline, it was revealed that the French president and German chancellor have rejected Downing Street’s request to hold emergency talks on the telephone to break the impasse.
Instead, the two most important leaders in Europe have demanded that all negotiations are conducted through officials in Brussels.
As he attended an EU summit yesterday, Mr Macron refused to budge on the key issue of fishing quotas as he insisted he is unwilling to ‘give up my share of the cake’. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told the assembled leaders she believes there is now a greater chance of No Deal than an agreement.
Lord Frost and Michel Barnier, the UK and EU’s chief negotiators, this morning will continue talks in Brussels
‘We just can’t seem to make progress’
as they seek to resolve the two biggest stumbling blocks regarding Britain setting its own standards under a trade deal and fishing quotas.
Mr Johnson and Mrs von der Leyen have set a deadline of tomorrow to decide whether there is any point continuing negotiations. It is thought the Prime Minister could fly to Brussels if he believes there is a chance of getting a deal.
The Prime Minister on Thursday said he was willing to go to Paris, Berlin or ‘wherever to try and get this home and get a deal’. But an EU official revealed yesterday that Mr Johnson had already been told he must negotiate with the European Commission after he requested a telephone call with Mr Macron and Mrs Merkel on Monday and it was rejected.
On a visit to Blyth in Northumberland yesterday, Mr Johnson admitted he was not hopeful of a breakthrough in the trade talks. ‘ Unfortunately at the moment, as you know, there are two key things where we just can’t seem to make progress and that’s this kind of ratchet clause they’ve got in to keep the UK locked in to whatever they want to do in terms of legislation, which obviously doesn’t work,’ he said.
‘And then there is the whole issue of fish where we’ve got to be able to take back control of our waters. So there is a way to go – we’re hopeful that progress can be made.
‘I’ve got to tell that from where I stand now, here in Blyth, it is looking very, very likely that we will have to go for a solution that I think would be wonderful for the UK, and we’d be able to do exactly what we want from January 1.
‘It obviously would be different from what we’d set out to achieve but I have no doubt this country can get ready and, as I say, come out on World Trade terms.’ At a press conference in Brussels yesterday Mrs von der Leyen insisted that under the EU’s proposal the UK would have the right to diverge from it rules, but insisted that measures such as tariffs and quotas would need to be introduced if it led to a competitive advantage.
‘They would remain free. Sovereign, if you wish, to decide what they want to do,’ the Commission president said.
‘We would simply adapt the conditions for access to our market accordingly [to] the decision of the United Kingdom, and this would apply vice versa.’
Asked about her comments, a Downing Street spokesman said: ‘I would say there isn’t anything new here. Because they still say they would adapt the conditions they place on us for access. And our position on sovereignty remains unchanged.’
On the issue of fishing, Mrs von der Leyen insisted that European boats had a ‘legitimate expectation’ to maintain access to British waters as they have done for ‘decades, and, sometimes, centuries’.
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte last night called on both sides to find a compromise.
He said: ‘The only thing I can say to ourselves, to our side but also to Boris Johnson, it will be unexplainable to the rest of the world if the UK and Europe are not able to come to a deal. In these times of upheaval.’