Tight timetable risks ‘quick and dirty’ trade deal with EU
THE EU’S plan to play hardball emerged as the UK’S former top diplomat in Brussels warned that Britain was heading for a hard no-deal Brexit in 2020 accusing Mr Johnson and his government of “diplomatic amateurism”.
The Conservative manifesto promises to “Get Brexit done” before Christmas 2020 but that risks forcing UK negotiators to accept a “quick and dirty” trade deal as the EU exploits the timetable to extract major concessions, Sir Ivan Rogers said.
“This is diplomatic amateurism dressed up domestically as boldness and decisiveness,” he told an audience at the University of Glasgow, adding that he believed that it was a “near-certainty” that negotiations would end in failure.
The European Commission yesterday began work on drawing up internal mandates for the trade negotiations.
They will begin once Britain leaves the EU on Jan 31 2020 – should the Tories win a majority at the Dec 12 General Election.
“There is no way in hell to do a deal on the basis of what Boris Johnson is proposing,” Sir Ivan said.
“The choice is either no deal, Brexit 2.0 or to extend the transition period.”
Michel Barnier will move to his new role overseeing the negotiations on the future UK-EU partnership on Dec 1.
The EU’S trade commissioner Phil Hogan has hinted that a deal could be completed by the end of 2020, but only if the United Kingdom accepts a host of conditions, including fishing rights and alignment to EU rules and standards.
British officials insist that the UK will take back control of its fishing waters, which are currently pooled with EU fleets. Sam Lowe, of the Centre for European Reform think tank, said that such a deal was possible but would result in a Canada-style free trade agreement delivering “a hard Brexit not far removed from no deal”.
Sir Ivan, who resigned as UK ambassador in Brussels in 2017 after privately warning Number 10 it could take a decade to get a new deal with Europe, said that the pressures on Mr Johnson would become intolerable as a new cliff-edge approached next year.
Setting out the parameters of that “quick and dirty” Canada-style trade deal, Sir Ivan warned that the EU would extract a disproportionately high price
‘This is diplomatic amateurism dressed up domestically as boldness and decisiveness’
from the UK – with access to UK goods markets and fishing grounds, with little or nothing in return on financial and other services.
“We seem to be off to Canada, without our services sector,” he added, warning that a “desperate” Mr Johnson would face a “binary choice between a highly asymmetrical thin deal on [the EU’S] terms, and no deal towards the end of next year.”
Faced with signing such an unequal treaty, Sir Ivan did not rule out Mr Johnson making the concessions and returning to London to sell the deal as a “huge success” but thought it more likely that the Cabinet would opt for a World Trade Organisation-terms exit and reject agreeing to so much in return for so little.