Businesses may face ‘cliff-edge’ break

Pro-EU MPs have expressed alarm Britain could leave the European Union without any transition period if there is no deal on a new free trade agreement.

In the Commons, Theresa May said in order to have a transition to a new partnership arrangement with the EU following Brexit, the terms of that arrangement would have to be clear.

Following last week’s EU summit in Brussels, the Prime Minister said she remained “confident” she would be able to get that “new, deep and special partnership” with the EU.

However Labour MPs said if she failed to get an agreement and there was no transition, businesses would face the “cliff-edge” break which they had feared when Britain leaves in March 2019.

Mrs May told the House: “The point of the implementation period is to put in place the practical changes necessary to move to the future partnership.

“In order to have that you need to know what the future partnership is going to be.”

The Prime Minister was pressed by Labour former Cabinet minister Yvette Cooper who warned Britain could be forced to fall back on World Trade Organisation rules.

“If we haven’t got a long-term trade deal agreed by this time next year, then there won’t be any transition deal at all and Britain will end up on WTO rules by March 2019,” she said.

Former shadow chancellor Chris Leslie also urged her to commit to negotiating a transitional arrangement separate from a trade deal.

“It is the cliff edge that the business community want to know will not be there in 2019,” he said.

He later tweeted her refusal to offer the reassurance he was demanding would be a “disaster” for business planning.

Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable said she should act to lift the “shadow of uncertainty” hanging over business.

“This defeats the whole point of a transition deal, which is to provide much-needed certainty,” he said.

Mrs May is confident she can negotiate a special partnership with the EU.