The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
UK will not go over ‘cliff edge’ if Brexit talks fail
Government ministers ‘planning for all outcomes’
Brexit secretary David Davis insists the Government is making contingency plans for such an outcome, after MPs warned failure to put a back-up strategy in place would be a “serious dereliction of duty”.
Former minister Anna Soubry, meanwhile, claimed talks could collapse within six months and leave Britain falling off a cliff edge.
The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said there was a real possibility the talks could end with no deal and warned that would be “very destructive” for both Britain and the EU.
Mr Davis insisted, however, the country would be ready if the negotiations “go wrong” and said the preparations would stop the country falling off “a cliff edge”.
He told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show: “We have been planning for the contingency, all the various outcomes, all the possible outcomes of the negotiations.”
Prime Minister Theresa May has repeatedly said she would rather walk away without a settlement than agree to a “bad deal”.
Foreign secretary Boris Johnson said it is “excessively pessimistic” of the select committee to suggest there is a real possibility Britain will tumble out of the EU with no deal and revert to World Trade Organisation rules.
But he said that if this did happen, it would not be “apocalyptic” and the UK would continue to thrive.
He told ITV’s Peston On Sunday: “I think that’s excessively pessimistic of that otherwise distinguished committee. I think we’ve got every prospect of doing a very good deal between now and the end of the negotiating period in 2019.”
He insisted a deal is a “very likely” outcome, stressing that the UK has a “robust” economy and a confident negotiating team.
“But the third thing, which I don’t think people recognise, is that our partners and friends around the EU desperately want this thing to work. They don’t want more misery, they don’t want to fall out with the UK.”
Ms Soubry, a leading Remain campaigner, said some ministers were preparing for talks to fail within months.
She told BBC One’s Sunday Politics: “I think the big fear, certainly the fear I have, is that we will be crashing out in six months.
“The Government is putting in place, basically, scaffolding at the bottom of the cliff, to break our fall when we come to fall off that cliff, and I think many in government are actually preparing not for a two-year process but six to nine months, off the cliff, out we go.”
MPs are preparing to vote on the Brexit Bill that will allow the Prime Minister to trigger the start of withdrawal talks.
Mr Davis has called on them to to kick out measures introduced by peers that would give Parliament a “meaningful” vote on the divorce deal and guarantees on protections for EU nationals living in Britain when they consider them today.
Up to 10 Tory MPs could oppose the Government or abstain in the vote, including former education secretary Nicky Morgan and former chancellor Ken Clarke, says the Mail On Sunday.