Brexit talks begin with the UK’s big hitters fighting among themselves
British PM May ready to carpet ministers over sniping as talks with European Union start
Detailed negotiations on the British withdrawal from the European Union got under way in Brussels yesterday, with a team from London arriving in a cloud of rancour and division.
David Davis, the British cabinet minister responsible for the talks, and Michel Barnier – the EU negotiator – quickly got down to business, with two telling developments at the outset.
As if to underline a much-discussed gulf in preparations, the EU officials arrived with thick dossiers while the British sat with their hands on the bare table. Within an hour, it emerged that Mr Davis was only there for the opening salvoes and would depart to his Whitehall office within hours.
The first indication of how the discussions are going is expected at a press conference on Thursday.
The gulf between the parties in the talks is the subject of a tidal wave of comment in Britain and around the continent.
The main development since British prime minister Theresa May submitted the letter instructing Brussels to start the two-year exit period has been that Whitehall has accepted demands for an exit payment that could go as high as €100 billion (Dh422bn). Officials last week said the talks would determine “a fair settlement of the UK’s rights and obligations as a departing member state”.
Also top of the agenda in the first round of talks is the corresponding rights of EU citizens living in Britain and those of Britons resident in the EU countries.
Mr Davis said it was important to “lift the uncertainty” on the matter.
The third issue each side wants to address is free movement across the Irish border. According to the mandate for the talks, these three issues must be resolved before moving on to discussion of transitional arrangements and a long-term trading framework.
The brevity of Mr Davis’s appearance appeared to underline the extent of infighting in the British cabinet over Brexit. Mrs May and Mr Davis have been thought to favour a clean break with Europe. Other senior figures seek a closer link to the world’s biggest trading bloc. Philip Hammond, the chancellor, was accused of “treachery” by right-wing, Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph yesterday after he said some of his colleagues were fighting for his agenda of a two-stage Brexit.
In comments that confirmed the level of division in the highest echelons of the ruling Conservative party, Mr Hammond said his priority was a European deal that protected British jobs and living standards.
His rivals said he was acting as if he was fighting pirates keeping him hostage on a ship – Britain – sailing off across the high seas.
The lines of abuse and vitriol are not neatly drawn between the Leave and Remain camps.
Dominic Cummings, a prominent Leave campaigner, took to Twitter to suggest a well-concealed conspiracy between Mr Hammond and Mr Davis to achieve a compromise arrangement that keeps Britain close to the EU. He suggested Mr Davis was as “lazy as a toad” and a “perfect stooge”.
Boris Johnson, foreign secretary, was also in Brussels for a separate meeting of EU foreign ministers. He faced the indignity of being invited to whistle by reporters who reminded him that last week that he had said the EU would not get an exit settlement from Britain. He upset Brussels mandarins by suggesting they “go whistle”.
With civil servants in charge of the detailed talks, Mr Davis can attend a meeting of the cabinet today where Mrs May is likely to rebuke her most senior colleagues. A spokesman for the prime minister said leaks and back-biting must stop. “Cabinet must be able to hold discussions on government policy in private and the prime minister will be reminding her colleagues of that at the cabinet meeting,” the spokesman said. “She will be reminding them of their responsibilities.”
Behind the storm and fury lie issues of real concern. Car industry figures in the UK expressed fears that an EU free trade deal with Japan, to come into effect after the British exit, would decimate an industry that employs tens of thousands of people.
A study by a leading expert on the food industry said disruption to supply chains could cause shortages in shops and create regulatory black holes.
“To leave the EU would sever the UK from many bodies which underpin food, from scientific advisory bodies to regulators, from research programmes to subsidies to regions,” Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University in London, and others wrote. “What is going to replace these? There is silence” from the government, they said.
Cabinet must be able to hold discussions on policy in private and the PM will be reminding colleagues of that