Johnson sorry for comments on Iran prisoner
A BREXIT deal similar to the agreement struck between the European Union and Canada risks coming up short for UK businesses, a leading industry body has said.
ICAS, which represents chartered accountants, studied the trade deal and said that while it could be a “useful point of reference” for UK negotiators, the benefits of the deal “fall short” of those Britain has as a result of its membership of the EU.
The report was prepared by James Ogilvy, a former adviser to the Alberta provincial government who observed negotiations for the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) deal.
The cumulative impact of the agreement on Canadian GDP is “anticipated to be 0.4 per cent or less”, the report said.
It added: “These amounts of gain are small compared to the projections for loss to the UK’s economy should it revert to the WTO (World Trade Organisation) agreements. The CETA, although it improves Canada’s economic relationship with the EU, clearly falls short of the benefits that the UK enjoys with EU membership.”
The ICAS report highlights that Canada still does not have a ratified deal on financial services, and shows that the CETA deal only secured temporary entry for professional services into Europe.
It took eight years to reach that agreement, with the paper warning Britain’s negotiators will be a “relatively inexperienced, almost ad hoc group” in comparison with a “well-seasoned and focused EU negotiating team that is fully familiar with the processes and its own objectives, and confident of its targets”.
The negotiations between Europe and Canada lasted seven years from the start of the formal engagement process in October 2009, with both sides needing time “to bring in their constituent members” early in this period. After the deal was signed almost another year was needed to get to the point where CETA came into effect provisionally in September this year – with ratification and implementation still needing to be carried out, the report said.
In response, a UK Government spokesman said: “We want a bold and ambitious free-trade agreement with the EU, which recognises the strength of the trading relationship from which both sides currently benefit.
“We are not looking for an offthe-shelf arrangement. We are seeking a bespoke free-trade agreement that is of greater scope and ambition than any such existing agreement.”
Brexit Secretary David Davis flew to Rome yesterday as he continued his bid to win round the leaders of the remaining EU nations over the UK’s position.
And Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss joined European Finance Ministers at the EU Council building in Brussels. She later posted a picture of her ‘discussing Brexit and future economic cooperation’ with new Netherlands Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra.
Separately, Chancellor Philip Hammond was given a fresh warning yesterday that continuing uncertainty over Brexit could jeopardise public finances.
The head of the National Audit Office (NAO) Sir Amyas Morse said high levels of government borrowing since the financial crash meant there were already “significant risks” to the finances. And he warned that these could be exacerbated by “unexpected developments” – including any unforeseen consequences of leaving the EU.
The NAO said that since 200910, borrowing had increased by 61 per cent while interest payments on the UK’s debts had cost the Government £222bn.
Meanwhile, the Government announced that EU citizens were to be granted a statutory right of appeal if their application to stay in the UK after Brexit was rejected. The right to appeal to the UK courts is among a set of tweaks to Britain’s proposals on EU citizens’ rights presented to the European Commission in a bid to break the deadlock in Brexit talks. BORIS JOHNSON has admitted he “could have been clearer” in his comments about British woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and was “sorry” if his remarks were misconstrued.
The Foreign Secretary has faced calls to quit after telling a committee of MPs last week that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was training journalists in Iran at the time of her arrest last year, something her employer and her family insist is incorrect.
But in the Commons yesterday Mr Johnson said the UK Government “has no doubt that she was on holiday” in Iran and that was the sole purpose of her visit and he insisted his remarks could provide no reason for lengthening her sentence.
He said he was concerned at suggestions from Tehran that his remarks last week to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee were being used as justification to increase Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s jail term.
Before updating MPs in the Commons, Mr Johnson told his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif there was “no justifiable basis” for further legal action against Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Mr Johnson’s phone conversation with Mr Zarif came after Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is serving a five-year jail sentence for supposed involvement in a coup plot, was summoned before an Iranian court on Saturday to be told she was now facing allegations of “propaganda against the state”.
Her family fear that this charge could lead to a further five years’ imprisonment.
The Iranian judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights said Mr Johnson’s comments to the Foreign Affairs Committee had “shed new light on the realities about Nazanin”.
Both her husband Richard and her employer the Thomson Reuters Foundation had urged Mr Johnson to correct his comments.
Mr Johnson said: “I’m sorry if any words of mine have been so taken out of context and so misconstrued as to cause any kind of anxiety.”