Davis accuses EU of acting in bad faith over the transition

DAVID DAVIS has accused the EU of being “discourteous” and acting in bad faith after it threatened to “punish” Britain during the transition period.

The Brexit Secretary criticised Brussels for saying it would ground flights, suspend single market access and impose trade tariffs on the UK after March 2019. The proposals to sanction Britain were “not in good faith”, he said, and publishing them was “unwise”.

It came amid mounting frustration at the lack of progress in negotiations. The EU cancelled several meetings with British negotiators this week and will not hold any next week.

A source in the Brexit department accused Brussels of stalling negotiations to reduce negotiating time and increase pressure on Britain. “They’re playing games,” he said. Mr Davis told Sky News: “I do not think it was in good faith to publish a document with frankly discourteous language and implying they could arbitrarily terminate in effect the implementation period. That is not what the aim of this exercise is and we think it was unwise to publish it.”

The EU appeared to move after the Prime Minister’s Brexit sub-committee held a second debate about the future relationship with Brussels amid increasing concern that Remainers and Brexiteers could not agree. But Mr Davis said the atmosphere had been constructive although he admitted there were “still things incomplete”.

He played down official economic forecasts suggesting Brexit would significantly damage the economy, saying every forecast so far had been “massively wrong”.

The Government yesterday published a document telling the EU it should treat Britain like a “member state” during the transition.