Barnier says paying Brexit bill could secure trade deal

BRITAIN is more likely to secure a free trade deal with the European Union if it pays the full £39 billion Brexit bill, Michel Barnier has signalled for the first time.

The European Commission has always insisted that the payment of the financial settlement, a central part of the withdrawal agreement, could not be made conditional on a trade deal – something leading Eurosceptics have always called for. Dominic Raab, the Brexit Secretary, has been pushing for a link between the Brexit deal and the political declaration.

The concession by Mr Barnier, the EU’S chief Brexit negotiator, emerged with the publication of a transcript of his meeting with the House of Commons Brexit select committee in Brussels on Monday. Jacob Rees-mogg warned Mr Barnier that Parliament would find it difficult to pass a Brexit deal that did not link the bill to a future trade agreement. Mr Barnier told the arch-eurosceptic: “We may work on a possible link. I don’t know what legal form that will take but there may well be a link. Obviously we will have to look at the legal form of that link. There might be a link between the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration.”

But the Frenchman expressly ruled out any further UK-EU negotiations if there was a no-deal Brexit, raising the possibility of huge delays at ports, airports and disruptions for sectors such as medicine and financial services.

He said that what would happen to British citizens in the EU and EU expats in Britain would be up to the relevant governments to decide unilaterally. Mr Barnier also rejected reports that he claimed Mrs May’s Chequers deal was dead as the transcript revealed he said, in response to a question from Hilary Benn: “I did not just reject the White Paper outright; that is just not true.”

Mr Barnier also said he was “very concerned” about the Irish border.