You must be ready to walk out of EU talks warn Tory Brexiteers
BRExITEER MPs have told Theresa May to prepare for ‘no deal’ with the EU after Jean-Claude Juncker claimed the UK needs ‘miracles’ for Europe to agree to start trade talks.
They told the Prime Minister she should be ready to tell the EU’s leader that Britain will go it alone unless negotiations on a future deal begin by the end of the year.
Downing Street remains quietly confident that discussions on a trade deal and a socalled transition period will be rubberstamped by EU leaders in October.
Yesterday, German leader Angela Merkel claimed negotiations were driving forward after Mrs May’s speech in Italy, saying: ‘The speech of Florence has helped revive the negotiation process.’
But in a move that will be seen to jeopardise the ‘new dynamic’, the European Commission president yesterday appeared to rule out the prospect of any breakthrough.
Speaking at an EU leaders’ summit, Mr Juncker said: ‘At the end of this week I am saying that there will be no sufficient progress from now until October unless miracles would happen.’ EU bosses will decide in October whether UK guarantees on the ‘divorce bill’, Northern Ireland and citizens’ rights constitute ‘sufficient progress’ before talks on a future relationship can begin.
But last night a group of prominent Brexiteers piled pressure on Mrs May by telling her to prepare for a ‘no deal’ scenario if the EU does not open trade talks by December. The eight signatories, including former Cabinet minister Owen Paterson and exBrexit minister David Jones, raised fears over whether the UK would accept EU rules during a transition period.
The letter, signed by John Longworth, ex-boss of the British Chambers of Commerce, calls for Mrs May to revert to World Trade Organisation rules if the EU will not negotiate a trade deal quickly.
The move reflects growing concern among Tory hardliners over the Prime Minister’s reformed Brexit approach announced in her speech last week. She announced plans for an ‘implementation period’ that would effectively keep the UK in the EU for two years after 2019 and insisted Britain would pay the Brexit bill.
Senior EU figures yesterday predicted the UK would approach ‘further change’ after the Tory conference next week, which they described as an ‘obvious barrier’.
Diplomats said they expect Mrs May to announce more concessions on demands for a €100billion divorce bill after the conference, believing her hands are currently tied by fears of a Brexiteer revolt.
They added: ‘May’s Florence speech was actually full of concessions … that’s why we have this change in mood.’ The Prime Minister used the Estonia summit to call for a softening of the bloc’s hard-line demands in return for her more co-operative approach.
‘I made the speech so that we could give momentum and that has been recognised by the European Union,’ she said yesterday.
Mrs May said she wanted her offer on issues such as citizens’ rights to be ‘reciprocated in [EU] proposals’. She also said the UK was ‘unconditionally committed to maintaining Europe’s security’.
Citing Russian ‘aggression’, she added: ‘I want to build a bold, new security partnership with the EU.’
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier echoed Mr Juncker earlier this week by warning trade talks could be ‘months’ away – despite welcoming a ‘new dynamic’ in the latest round of negotiations.
But EU leaders were yesterday quick to distance themselves from the assessment. Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar opened the door to a breakthrough by insisting ‘sometimes miracles happen in politics’.
Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat said the leaders would listen to Mr Barnier but that the vote was ultimately a ‘political decision’ for leaders.
A Downing Street source dismissed the importance of Mr Juncker’s comments, which followed critical remarks by the European Parliament’s Brexit head Guy Verhofstadt.
They said: ‘The response from the 27 leaders has been constructive. This is just what Juncker does. Juncker and Verhofstadt always take the most robust position.’
A source close to Mr Juncker denied his comments were deliberately pessimistic, saying: ‘We believe in miracles but we are not hallucinating.’ But the senior official added: ‘If it happens [a negotiating breakthrough], it will happen in December.’
‘Most robust position’