Boris: EU can ‘go whistle’ over £50bn Brexit demand

‘Extortionate’ divorce bill comments laughed off by David Davis who will go through claim line by line

BORIS JOHNSON has said that the European Union can “go whistle” over its “extortionate” demands for a £50billion Brexit divorce bill.

The Foreign Secretary was asked by a Eurosceptic Conservative MP to tell Brussels that the UK does not owe a “penny piece more” after decades of contributions to the EU’S budget.

Mr Johnson replied: “I’m sure that your words will have broken like a thunderclap over Brussels and they will pay attention to what you have said.

“He makes a very valid point and I think that the sums that I have seen that they propose to demand from this country seem to me to be extortionate and I think ‘to go whistle’ is an entirely appropriate expression.”

Mr Johnson has previously suggested that Brussels could end up having to pay a bill to Britain because the UK has contributed to so many EU assets.

The Foreign Secretary also said yesterday that Britain was not making contingency plans for Brexit negotiations breaking down without a deal because “we are going to get a great deal”.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, claimed that Mr Johnson’s “silly” language risked jeopardising negotiations with the EU.

However, David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, laughed off the comments and said the UK was already challenging whether it was legally obliged to pay a divorce bill at all.

Mr Davis said the strategy was “not to pay more than we need to” and that Britain would not accept the EU’S “first claim” without going through it line by line. He told the House of Lords European Union select committee: “There will be a process of challenge going on here, and that will happen and has started already in the negotiated process to establish whether or not we believe they have made a legally defensible argument or not.”

Asked about Mr Johnson’s comments, the Brexit Secretary laughed before telling peers: “Bluntly, I wouldn’t worry. I mean you will have to get the Foreign Secretary here to explain his views if you really wanted to.”

Mr Davis told the committee that all of the British newspapers were read in Brussels and they “take them, if anything, too seriously”.

Mr Davis said Michel Barnier, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator, was a principled man who was “very French, very logical, tough but not wholly inflexible”. He suggested that Emmanuel Macron, the French president, who is considered one of the most difficult figures in Brexit negotiations, in fact wants to prioritise a deal.

He said that there was unlikely to be a “domino” effect for other EU nations in the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

Mr Davis also rejected claims that the Government had softened its stance on Brexit since the election, and suggested that European residents will still be able to take complaints about Britain’s use of the European Arrest Warrant to the European Court of Justice after the withdrawal.

Despite a series of Cabinet rows, Mr Davis insisted that there was not “a cigarette paper” in difference between him and Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, over Brexit.

‘I’m sure that your words will have broken like a thunderclap over Brussels and they will pay attention’