MEP vote hopes for
MEPs have voted in favour of a tough line on Brexit negotiations following a debate in Strasbourg in which Nigel Farage was heckled and rebuked for accusing the European Parliament of “behaving like the mafia”.
The former Ukip leader was told to retract his “unacceptable” remark by the parliament’s president, Italian Antonio Tajani, and said that, in respect of his national sensitivities, he would instead brand them “gangsters”.
But Mr Tajani responded: “There are no mafia or gangsters here. There are representatives of the people. This is nothing to do with national sensitivities, it is to do with being civil and democratic.”
MEPs heard the European Commission’s president Jean-Claude Juncker and chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier restate their rejection of Theresa May’s appeal for divorce and trade talks to be held in parallel, insisting that the EU could not deal with its future relations with the UK until the terms of withdrawal were “fully resolved”.
Both men also said Britain would have to pay a divorce bill to settle financial commitments entered into as a member state, with Mr Barnier saying: “We do not seek to punish the United Kingdom, we are simply asking the United Kingdom to deliver on its commitments and undertakings as a member of the European Union.”
Responding to the former Ukip leader’s description of the financial demand, estimated at around £50 billion, as “a kind of ransom payment”, Mr Barnier said: “In fact, Mr Farage, all we are doing is settling the accounts. No more and no less.”
MEPs backed by a margin of 560133 a resolution tabled by the leaders of the main party groupings, which set out red lines for the upcoming withdrawal negotiations under Article 50 of the EU treaties.
The parliament – which has an effective veto on the deal reached after two years of negotiations – insisted Britain must meet all its financial obligations and rejected any “cherry-picking” of privileged access to the single market for sectors of the UK economy such as financial services.
The resolution backed the commission’s “phased” approach to dealing with the terms of withdrawal before moving on to the question of trade, and warned that there can be no trade-off between security and the future economic relationship between the EU and UK.
Mr Farage predicted that many other countries would follow Britain to the exit door if the EU stood in the way of a free trade agreement by insisting on unacceptable terms or trying to impose tariffs on UK goods and services.
“If you wish to have no deal, if you wish to force us to walk away from the table, it is not us that will be hurt,” he said.
“We don’t have to buy German motor cars, we don’t have to drink French wine, we don’t have to eat Belgian chocolate. There are a lot of other people that will give that to us.”
He said the European Council’s proposal to give Spain a veto on future agreements concerning Gibraltar could be a “deal-breaker”.
“You have shown yourselves by these demands to be vindictive, to be nasty,” he said.
“All I can say is thank goodness we are leaving. You are behaving like the mafia. You think we are a hostage – we are not, we are free to go.”
Mr Barnier warned MEPs: “No deal would have very serious consequences, first and foremost for the United Kingdom, but also for the European Union.
“The ‘no deal’ scenario is not the scenario we are looking for. We are looking for success – success not against the United Kingdom, but with the United Kingdom.”