I’ll be a charming b ****** to win the best Brexit deal
Davis vow as EU accused of blackmailing us over divorce bill
DAVID Davis vowed to play the ‘charming b ****** ’ in Brexit negotiations yesterday, as ministers’ frustration with Brussels stubbornness burst into the open.
The Brexit Secretary said negotiations were already ‘tense’ – and warned they were set to ‘get tougher’ as the EU digs in its heels over demands for a divorce payment of up to £90billion.
He said: ‘We are in a difficult and tough and complicated negotiation. I said from the beginning, it will be turbulent.
‘This is the first ripple and there will be many more ripples along the way.’
His intervention came just hours after International Trade Secretary Liam Fox accused the EU of trying to ‘blackmail’ Britain by linking talks on a future trade deal to payment of the divorce bill.
The tough talk came after a bruising week of negotiations in Brussels which ended in deadlock over the issue of the EU’s extraordinary financial demands.
Speaking in Washington yesterday, Mr Davis said he remained a ‘determined optimist’ about Brexit, and said there was no reason why the UK and EU should not be able to strike a good free trade deal, providing Brussels did not use the exercise to try to punish Britain for leaving.
But he warned that he was prepared to get tough – and recalled being described as a ‘charming b ****** ’ during his role as Europe minister in the mid-1990s.
‘I was rather proud of it, because you had to be both – charming but sometimes difficult,’ he said.
‘And that is the nature of what you are seeing now. There are going to be tough times but the trick is to remember that at the end of it we want an outcome which is in everyone’s interest.’
Mr Davis used the speech to the US Chamber of Commerce to issue a thinly-veiled warning to Donald Trump about the dangers of the US retreating into economic protectionism.
‘The answer to the problems of the West cannot be to turn our back on globalisation and trade – it’s to lead the world forward once again,’ he said. But he acknowledged it may be impossible to complete new free trade deals until after Britain has left the EU and completed any ‘transitional period’ – meaning new deals could be as much as five years away.
The Brexit Secretary described the withdrawal negotiations as ‘the most complex in history’, adding: ‘Time is the enemy.’
Europe’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier warned this week that he would try to block the start of trade talks this autumn unless the UK agrees to settle a divorce bill that includes British taxpayers continuing to fund European aid and environmental programmes after we have left.
Speaking on a trade mission to Japan yesterday, Dr Fox hit back angrily, saying: ‘We can’t be blackmailed into paying a price on the first part. We think we should begin discussions on the final settlement because that’s good for business, and it’s good for the prosperity both of the British people and of the rest of the people of the European Union.’
The European Parliament’s chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt yesterday claimed the EU had bent over backwards to accommodate the UK during negotiations with David Cameron two years ago.
Mr Verhofstadt said: ‘I was in the room at the time of the renegotiation and substantial additional exceptions were offered – a new special status of EU membership, with an opt-out from the core principle of ‘ever closer union’ and an emergency brake on benefits for EU workers.
‘I even offered to work with the UK to develop a new form of associate EU membership, but UK ministers rejected it, as they argued that it would mean losing the UK’s seat at the top table.’
DAVID Davis and Ruth Davidson yesterday rallied behind Theresa May’s bid to remain in Downing Street long-term.
The Brexit Secretary said he expected the Government to last ‘the full five years’, despite Lord Heseltine saying this week that Mrs May’s administration would collapse within two years. And Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said Mrs May was ‘absolutely’ the right person to lead the party into the next general election.
‘There are going to be tough times’