Cost of Brexit compromise is put at £36bn as talks deadline looms
● Downing Street insists figure yet to be agreed as Brexiteers rage
Downing Street has denied reports it is prepared to sign off on a £36 billion Brexit payment to the EU after Whitehall sources were quoted putting a figure on the UK’S “divorce bill” for the first time.
Reports suggest the government is willing to make staged payments of up to €40 billion if the EU agreed to open talks on a post-brexit trade deal.
With three weeks until the next round of Brexit talks, discussion of the scale of the UK’S liabilities to the EU would open the door to a compromise on one of the key sticking points in negotiations of an October deadline.
European sources have previously been quoted putting the size of those commitments much higher, at between €60 and €100 billion.
Ministers have rejected those figures, but conceded in July that the UK must meet its financial “obligations” to the EU.
“We know their position is €60billion, but the actual bottom line is €50billion,” an unnamed senior Whitehall source told the Sunday Telegraph. Ours is closer to €30billion, but the landing zone is €40billion, even if the public and politicians are not all there yet.” Two other anonymous
0 Vince Cable says that ‘the old have comprehensively shafted … a younger generation more comfortable with modern Europe’ briefings showed the UK’S negotiating position was “an utter shambles”.
“Whatever amount the government proposes, their Brexit supporters won’t understand why it is being paid when their campaign promised otherwise,” Mr Cable said.
“The government has spent months failing to properly engage or set out their plans for these negotiations – it has been an utter shambles.”
EU negotiators insist that talks on a future trade deal with the UK cannot take place until “sufficient progress” has been made on agreeing a Brexit financial settlement, securing the rights of EU citizens in the UK, and finding a solution for the Irish border.
Progress on those priorities will be assessed by EU heads of government at a summit in October.
The £36 billion figure was rejected by prominent Brexiteers on the Conservative backbenches.