Government won’t extend Brexit deadline, negotiator tells peers

ANY OFFER to extend the Brexit transition period would be rejected, a House of Lords committee has been told.

Speaking to the EU Committee of peers yesterday, the UK’s chief negotiator David Frost said that the UK Government would not agree to any such request from the EU and the Government continued to work towards a deadline of the end of the year to conclude the negotiations.

Lord Wood of Anfield said: “It sounds like the June deadline for an extension request is neither here nor there, it won’t be used under any circumstances. Is that true?

“Are there any circumstances for doing the negotiations that would prompt you to actually consider an extension request?”

Mr Frost responded: “The Government’s position’s pretty clear that we are not going to ask for an extension and if the EU asks for one, we will not agree to that.

“So I think that’s just part of the framework now and we’re working to an end-year deadline.”

On Wednesday, in a letter to the Westminster leaders of the SNP, Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru, SDLP, Green Party and Alliance Party, the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said the option of an extension to the Brexit transition period is available if the UK wants it.

The leaders of these parties had written to Mr Barnier on May 15 calling for a two-year extension to be agreed between the UK and the EU amid a negotiation deadlock.

And Lord Wood said: “If indeed the European Council comes back and says, ‘Look we really do need a little extension for this transition period in order to get the basics sorted out’, is the Government’s position that it will say no to that request?”

Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove simply responded: “Yes.”

There is concern that time is running out to reach a trade deal with the EU before the UK’s end of the year cut-off, with coronavirus making it all the more difficult to get over disagreements between the two sides.

Regarding a possible agreement on fisheries, Mr Gove told the committee: “It is an area of significant contention.

“It is interesting that, as we understand it, Michel Barnier had a call with the fisheries ministers of various nations earlier this week, and he may or may not have been seeking some flexibility from them.”

He added: “Whether we are inflexible, or they are resolute, or they are stubborn and we are principled – whichever way you cut it – there is… a stand-off there.”

And on the question of a level playing field – a trade policy designed to stop one country undercutting their rivals and gaining a competitive advantage – Mr Gove said that what the EU is asking of the UK is “unprecedented”.

The EU wants the UK to continue to abide by these rules after the transition period.

Mr Gove said: “What the EU is asking of us is unprecedented in any of the free trade agreements that they signed, or indeed contemplated signing, with other economies.

“But what the EU does interpret is geography as requiring those countries which are… within its periphery, within what it might consider in old-fashioned terms to be in its sphere of influence, to sign up to a higher level of compliance with EU rules and a higher level of EU supervision under its institutions than it requires of other countries.

“Now my view is that is a fundamentally illiberal approach.”

Mr Frost said he still believed, and had told the EU, a deal was still “perfectly possible”.

Government’s position is clear, we are not going to ask for an extension.

David Frost, UK’s chief negotiator.