Boris would pay to delay no deal pain
He’s willing to hand Brussels billions to keep borders open for two years
BORIS Johnson is preparing to pay Brussels billions of pounds to ease the pain of a No Deal Brexit, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Sources within Mr Johnson’s team have told this newspaper that the Conservative leadership frontrunner would make a ‘bold and credible offer’ to Brussels to suspend a ‘cliff-edge’ exit if fresh talks broke down ahead of the October 31 deadline.
Allies of Mr Johnson say that, under the plan, if he had failed to secure a new deal which was supported by the Commons, the EU would still announce that the UK had formally left by October 31, but in return for ‘a sizeable chunk’ of our £39 billion divorce settlement, it would allow current trade and transport links to continue until December 2021.
That would allow the new Prime Minister to claim that he had not reneged on his promise to deliver Brexit by the deadline, but would spare him the potential constitutional and logistical chaos of a No Deal scenario.
The time could also be used to try to forge a new trading relationship with the EU.
Mr Johnson was last week forced to admit his ‘standstill’ Brexit plan under Article 24 of World Trade Organisation rules could not be implemented unilaterally by Britain. The rules state that trading partners ‘may protract their existing arrangements until such time as they have completed the new free trade agreement’ but consent is required from both sides.
Now allies of Mr Johnson are hoping the financial lure of the £39 billion divorce cash will seduce the EU into such an agreement – but it risks a major row as he has been one of the most vocal critics of the financial settlement agreed by Theresa May.
Mr Johnson has also pledged to use that money to help mitigate the effects of a No Deal exit as well as honour expensive pledges to increase police and schools funding.
He told a membership hustings in York on Thursday: ‘It may have escaped your notice, but in the event of a No Deal Brexit, we will have an additional £39 billion to spend.’
He added: ‘There would be extra funds available from the £39billion ... that we’ll be able to spend looking after farmers, looking after a whole range of sectors.’
Mr Johnson’s allies are also hoping to use the prospect of a ‘workable if undesirable No Deal’ to achieve their ‘Plan A’ of convincing Brussels to relent on a time limit for the hated Northern Irish ‘backstop’. They believe that would break the Commons deadlock.
However the ‘transition team’ preparing him for power, including Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, Brexit stalwart Iain Duncan Smith and Health Secretary Matt Hancock, are split on whether the WTO standstill plan would realistically work in a No Deal scenario since it would not fully resolve the Northern Ireland headache.
Some insiders see it as ‘a clever way’ to bring Brussels to the table but ‘dubious in law’.
Despite this, Mr Johnson is being urged to announce to Brussels that, in a No Deal scenario under Article 21 of the WTO’s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Britain can avoid putting up a border on the island of Ireland as it would be ‘contrary to national security’.
One source said: ‘It would be a clever way of making things very uncomfortable for Brussels. We have the ability under GATT 21 to simply say no border. The pressure would then be on Dublin to explain what they are going to do about it.’
Another member of Mr Johnson’s team insisted GATT was ‘one way to mitigate some of the problems of a No Deal – it will certainly put the EU on the back foot.’
However, other insiders insisted that efforts to rely on GATT rules were doomed.
A source warned: ‘GATT is not universally accepted internally as a solution, or even as being workable, but it works well with those who believe it does.’ Others have described the plan as ‘party management’ to keep Brexiteers on board. One MP said: ‘We are currently in a moment of classic Johnson campaign confusion – it keeps a whole lot of people on side and enables him to say different things to different people.’
By showing support for the plan, Mr Johnson has seen off a ‘wobble’ by hard Brexit supporters in the Tory Party, including European
‘We are in a moment of classic Johnson campaign confusion’
Reform Group ringleader and MP for Wycombe Steve Baker.
Last night, trade expert David Henig from the European Centre For International Political Economy, said: ‘GATT Article 21 provisions on national security may be of some use in reconciling Brexit with no Irish border, but will not on their own provide an immediate solution acceptable to all parties. We can’t escape the need for an agreement by the EU and Irish communities.’