I hope Britain will get back in the EU boat says Juncker

... as Brussels admits £52bn divorce bill is negotiable

BRUSSELS chief JeanClaude Juncker yesterday claimed Britain will change its mind after Brexit and rejoin the EU. The European Commission president said he hoped the UK will one day decide to ‘re-enter the boat’.

But he was immediately ridiculed by Eurosceptics, including Nigel Farage, who joked that the EU will have ‘sunk by then’.

After a meeting in Brussels of the 27 other EU leaders without Theresa May, Mr Juncker said: ‘I don’t like Brexit because I would like to be in the same boat as the British.

‘The day will come when the British will re-enter the boat, I hope.

‘But Brexit is not the end of the European Union, nor the end of all our developments, nor the end of our continental ambitions.’ He claimed the prospect of the UK leaving the EU had strengthened the resolve of the remaining member states. ‘The Brexit issue is encouraging the others to continue, unfortunately without the British,’ he said.

A senior EU official later insisted the option of Britain returning to the EU ‘will always be open’.

‘There are different ways you can join. You can be a full member, you can be a partner, you can be related to us in the customs union, or through a trade agreement,’ the source said.

Mr Juncker’s remarks came as the European Parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator yesterday signalled Brussels would back down on its demand for Britain to pay a £52billion divorce bill when it leaves the EU.

After Mrs May warned she would fight the bill, Guy Verhofstadt admitted the hefty sum was a starting point that the EU will be forced to negotiate.

The Prime Minister warned European leaders on Thursday that the British people did not vote for Brexit only to keep sending huge sums to the EU.

Former Belgian prime minister Mr Verhofstadt told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I have done enough negotiations in my life as a politician – as a prime minister, as a member of the European Council and member of the European Parliament – to know at the beginning of negotiations... there is an enormous gap. That’s why I find it will be possible to find an agreement. I hope so.’

EU negotiators have claimed the UK will be on the hook for projects it agreed to after it leaves, as well as pensions for Brussels officials. But the Government’s legal advice states there is no law or treaty that will compel Britain to make payments after Brexit.

Mr Verhofstadt said Britain’s departure was ‘a crisis for the European Union’. He warned that MEPs could scupper any Brexit deal because the European Parliament can veto any agreement brokered between the UK and the European Commission.

‘We vote no – that is possible. It has happened in a number of other cases that a big international multilateral agreement was voted down by the European Parliament after it was concluded,’ he said.

Mr Verhofstadt suggested Britons could choose to keep elements of EU citizenship after Brexit, although other figures in Brussels have questioned how this would work.

He said we needed a deal ‘in which this arrangement can continue for those citizens who on an individual basis are requesting it’.

‘Crisis for the European Union’