BREXITEERS IN REVOLT OVER £36BN PAYOFF
Tories fume over divorce bill claim
THERESA May faces a fresh Tory rebellion amid claims Britain will pay a £36billion EU divorce bill.
Senior sources reportedly said much of the money would come from the UK keeping up its £9billion annual payments to Brussels for three years after Brexit in 2019.
This would be in return for similar trade and customs arrangements for that period as we enjoy today, so avoiding a “cliff edge” for business.
If agreed by the EU, the plan could also break the deadlock in negotiations and kick-start trade talks.
As most of the cash is already budgeted for, it would not have a major impact on public spending.
But hardline Tory Peter Bone suggested fellow Eurosceptics could block the move if it came to a vote in Parliament. He said: “One of the prime reasons the UK voted to leave the EU was to stop sending them billions of pounds per year – so it would be bizarre to give the EU any money, let alone £36billion.”
Another right-winger, Jacob Rees-Mogg, added: “There is no logic to this figure. Legally we owe nothing.” And ex-Cabinet minister John Redwood told LBC Radio it was “completely ridiculous” to suggest the UK would have to pay up simply to get Brussels to talk about trade. Last night Mrs May tried to defuse the row. A No10 source dismissed the £36billion figure as “inaccurate speculation”. The squabbling came as Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable claimed elderly voters, who felt economic pain was a price worth paying for Brexit, had “completely shafted the young”. Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said they were “selfdeclared martyrs” imposing a “world view coloured by nostalgia for an imperial past”.