NEW SECRETARY RIDICULED OVER BREXIT PAPER

Dominic Raab faced ridicule on his first trip to Brussels as Brexit Secretary Thursday as the EU flatly rejected Theresa May’s Chequers plan and mocked spelling errors in translations of the document.

Senior EU diplomats made it clear that the Brexit white paper agreed at Chequers cannot form the basis for negotiations, while British sources said the EU was being “deeply unhelpful.”

Raab looked nervous before his first meeting with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, which was overshadowed by the European Commission announcing it was stepping up preparations for a nodeal Brexit.

Even before he arrived, he faced embarrassment as it emerged that Britishprepared translations of the Brexit white paper into the native languages of the other 27 EU member states were full of errors.

According to the EurActiv website, the Estonian and Finnish version misspelt “Estonia” and “Finland.”

The Dutch version was described in a leading newspaper as reading like something put through the “cheapest available” translation software. It also misspelt Edinburgh as “Edinburg.”