‘PM does not have authority to deliver Brexit’ – Carwyn
FIRST Minister Carwyn Jones has cast doubt on whether Theresa May has the authority she needs to deliver a Brexit deal.
The Welsh Labour leader expressed his concerns after meeting with First Secretary Damian Green – Mrs May’s closest ally in the cabinet – in London.
Mr Jones has described the UK Government’s key Brexit legislation as a “power grab” and has warned that as things stand he is not able to recommend the Assembly grants its consent.
In recent weeks Mrs May has been hit with high-profile interventions on Brexit by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
When asked if she still had the authority to deliver a deal, Mr Jones said: “I don’t think so. We’ve seen voices off from her cabinet in the last few weeks.
“[If] Boris Johnson had done what he did and he was a Welsh minister, he wouldn’t be a Welsh minister now. So, I think there are questions to be asked about how
much authority Theresa May has now given the fact that there are various different voices popping up all over the place and saying different things and contradictory things.
“We don’t have a Government here in Westminster, we have governments and that’s in no-one’s interest.”
There is open discussion about the UK failing to strike a deal with the EU, but Mr Jones said that such an outcome would call into question the Government’s ability to agree deals with other trading partners.
He said: “That would show the UK Government hasn’t been able to come to an agreement with its biggest market, which happens to be on its doorstep.
“It doesn’t give much confidence that they’d be able to negotiate any kind of agreement with anyone else...
“If we can’t do it with the EU what hope have we got of doing it with anybody else? So, it’s a big test for the UK and the EU to come to an agreement that’s of benefit to everybody.”
The First Minister said AMs were a “long way from being able to give consent” to the UK Government’s Brexit legislation, but he described his talks with Mr Green as a “better meeting”.
He said: “I think there was a better understanding of the UK Government of the position that we’ve adopted.”
Mr Jones said his priorities are that “nothing should be done to Wales without the consent of the people of Wales” and “all ministers in the UK should be on a par”.
Key areas for discussion include how the different UK nations will agree common “frameworks” which will allow trade to flow unimpeded.
Mr Jones said: “What they say is they want to create certainty in the future. We agree with that, so the destination is agreed but what’s hugely important is that when for example there are proposed changes to Welsh law that it’s not done by Whitehall ministers but done by Welsh ministers or done here [in Westminster] but by consent.”
Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns defended Mrs May when asked if she had the authority to nail down a deal, he said: “I see nothing but respect for the detail in which the Prime Minister pursues the Brexit negotiations and the Brexit Bill in order to withdraw from the European Union in an orderly way. There’s strong support for the approach that she’s taking.
“We’ve been in a warm environment with the meeting now with the First Minister and we’re optimistic that we will get to that position [where] we will get a good deal for the UK with the European Union but also a good deal for all devolved administrations, including the Welsh Government and the Welsh Assembly within the UK.”
Mr Cairns stressed the importance of ensuring that investment is not undermined in the post-Brexit UK.
He said: “The last thing we want is to have four regulators in any one particularly sector for example – you would undermine investment in the UK but particularly undermine investment in Wales and in areas where there are small populations.”
Mr Cairns struck a positive note about the chances of the UK Government winning the support of AMs for its flagship Brexit Bill.
He said: “We’re going to work hard of course to get a Brexit Bill that gets the agreement of the Welsh Government and of the Assembly overall.”
PHILIP Hammond has indicated he is ready to spend large sums to get Britain ready for a “no deal” Brexit, as it emerged that £250m has already been allocated for EU withdrawal preparations.
The Chancellor said there was a “need for speed” from the other 27 EU nations in agreeing a transition to the post-Brexit era, both to deliver certainty for businesses and to avoid wasteful government spending on contingency planning.
Delays in beginning talks on the future UK/EU trading relationship – caused by Brussels’ insistence that the divorce deal must be settled first – were creating a “cloud of uncertainty” which was acting as a damper on the UK economy, he said.
Mr Hammond used an article in The Times to say that he was not yet ready to turn on the tap for spending on infrastructure, like lorry parks at Channel ports, which may be needed if the UK and EU fail to reach an agreement by the official Brexit date of March 2019.
Spending money now on Brexit preparations would divert cash away from priorities like the NHS, social care and education, and the investment may turn out to be unnecessary if talks in Brussels result in a good deal, he said.
But he later told MPs that the Treasury was “prepared to spend when we need to spend” on contingency plans for “no deal” outcomes including a possible “bad-tempered breakdown” in negotiations.
The Government would need to decide at some point what was the “realistic” worst case it needed to plan for, but it would wait until the “last point” before committing funds, he said.
It was “theoretically conceivable” that planes could be grounded at UK airports on day one of Brexit, though nobody “seriously believes that that is where we will get to”, he told the Commons Treasury Committee.
Theresa May told MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons that £250m has already been committed from Treasury reserves for Brexit preparations by government departments including environment, transport, the Home Office and HM Revenue & Customs during this financial year.
“We are preparing for every eventuality, we are committing money to prepare for Brexit, including a nodeal scenario,” the PM told MPs.
“Where money needs to be spent, it will be spent.”
Mrs May also denied that the Government was playing up the prospect of Britain leaving the EU with no deal.
“We are not ramping up a no-deal scenario, we are actively working with the negotiations with the European Union to ensure that we get a good deal, the right deal for Britain for a brighter future for this country,” she said.
The announcement was hailed as “great” by Suella Fernandes, chairwoman of the influential European Research Group of Brexit-backing MPs.
European Council president Donald Tusk indicated on Tuesday that he does not expect EU leaders to give a green light for the opening of talks on trade and transition at a crunch summit in Brussels next week, and suggested the move may even be delayed beyond the end of this year.
But Mr Hammond said businesses need certainty as soon as possible in order to make investment decisions and sign contracts covering periods after the official date of Brexit.
Early agreement would “avoid people having to make worst-case assumptions and acting on them in a way that would be damaging to their businesses, damaging to the UK economy, damaging to business partners in the other EU countries and damaging to the EU’s economy as a whole”, he said.
A transition period was a “wasting asset” which will lose its value the longer it takes to agree.
“Astonishingly”, work on the future relationship was under way in the UK but not on the EU side, even though there was “a high degree of consensus” in European capitals that agreement on transition arrangements was “a sensible thing to do and a practical thing to do”, he told MPs.
Mr Hammond urged EU leaders to allow “at least exploratory discussions” to begin, warning that progress on the kind of interim deal proposed by Theresa May in her speech last month in Florence would mean “breaking out” of the negotiation structure set out by the European Commission.
“Our European partners need to
think very carefully about the need for speed in order to protect the potential value to all of us of having an interim period that protects our businesses and citizens and allows investment and normal business activity – contracting and so on – to carry on,” said Mr Hammond.
He made clear Britain was preparing for the possibility that no deal would be reached.
“We have to consider the possibility of a bad-tempered breakdown in negotiations where we have non-cooperation, or a worst-case scenario where people are not necessarily acting in their own economic selfinterest,” he said.
Labour MP Wes Streeting, a leading supporter of the Open Britain campaign against a hard Brexit, said: “Philip Hammond’s heart isn’t in this because he, unlike many in his party, at least recognises the terrible risks and pitfalls Brexit has left this country vulnerable to.
“It’s time he and the Prime Minister showed some leadership, took on the hardliners on their backbenches, and reversed their damaging decision to leave the single market and the customs union.”
Labour transport spokesman Karl Turner said: “Philip Hammond has today confirmed that ‘no deal’ would be a total disaster for the aviation sector. The impact of this uncertainty will be felt by passengers long before March 2019 as airlines may not be able to sell advance tickets if a deal is not reached.
“If air cargo is grounded, we will not be able to import or export freely.”