Barnier’s claim UK will be less secure labelled ‘risible nonsense’
“will have very practical consequences including on defence and security” before listing a series of what he saw as negative impacts for the UK.
He said that the UK would no longer be part of the policing agency Europol, or the European Defence Agency and would have no right to sit at the council of defence ministers. He added: “British defence research facilities will not be able to benefit from EU funding, London will not be able to assume command of European operations.”
A Whitehall source said: “This is risible nonsense. Mr Barnier knows full well that the UK is the leading military and security power in Europe at a time when the threats to the Continent have increased dramatically. After we leave, the UK will continue to guarantee European security and shape defence through bilateral relations – something Mr Barnier would do well to remember.”
A source close to the negotiations said: “Isn’t that the EU wanting their cake and eating it? They say ‘You Brits are out of this, this, this and this, but then they say ‘we want the UK to work together’.”
Tim Cross, a retired Major General, accused Mr Barnier of driving a “fear agenda” while Gwythian Prins, emeritus research professor at the London School of Economics and a member of the Veterans For Britain campaign group, said: “All of the examples that he has outlined are not benefits.
“They are all entanglements. They are things that have impeded the best use of our defence establishment and funding.”
He added that “the primary alliances that matter to the UK” were Nato and the Five Eyes intelligence partnership with Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States, and not EU institutions.
“It’s a very good illustration of how far out of touch these people in the Brussels bubble are,” he said.