BREXIT NO DEAL WORSE FOR EU
£500bn cost to Brussels of stubbornness in talks
THE EU is on the verge of huge economic damage by forcing a “no deal” over Brexit, it was claimed yesterday.
International Trade Secretary Liam
Fox said that a no deal where Britain goes on to World Trade Organisation terms instead is now the most likely outcome.
It comes amid speculation that Theresa May failed to get French president Emmanuel Macron to agree to her controversial Chequers plan at a hastily arranged summit on Friday.
Dr Fox said that a no deal is now a 60/40 chance because of intransigence in Brussels.
But the outcome has been welcomed by many Brexiteers with evidence showing that EU countries will lose £500billion as a result of failing to strike a trade deal, including missing out on the £39billion divorce payment.
Meanwhile, Britain will gain more than £600billion as a Brexit dividend by being free of Brussels regulation on WTO rules.
Last night the research by Economists for Free Trade was hailed by Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the influential European Research Group of more than 60 pro-Brexit MPs.
He said: “Trading with the EU on WTO terms would work well for the UK and allows us to achieve Brexit sooner. It would save the country £39billion which the EU desperately needs to balance its budget. So with no deal the EU would be the loser.”
Dr Fox said in an interview yesterday: “I think the intransigence of the [EU] Commission is pushing us towards no deal.
“We have set out the basis in which a deal can happen but if the EU decides that the theological obsession of the unelected is to take priority over the economic wellbeing of the people of Europe then it’s a bureaucrats’ Brexit – not a people’s Brexit – then there is only going to be one outcome.”
He said EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier had dismissed the UK’s proposals in the Chequers plan thrashed out by Theresa May and the Cabinet simply because “we have never done it before”.
The Government has admitted its proposals are unprecedented but Dr Fox said Mr Barnier’s response “makes the chance of no deal greater”.
The Prime Minister held talks with Mr Macron on Friday, cutting short her holiday.
And ministers including Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab have also engaged in diplomatic activity in Europe in recent days as the Government seeks to deal directly with individual governments in an effort to keep the Chequers plan alive.
In a sign that member states are being warned of the consequences of no deal, Dr Fox said: “It’s up to the EU27 to determine whether they want the EU Commission’s ideological purity to be maintained at the expense of their real economies.” Figures from Economists for Free Trade, led by Professor Patrick Minford, showed that for the EU it would mean a oneoff loss of £39billion in financial settlement, plus another one-off loss of £36billion in terms of trade loss, plus the £433billion from paying the UK its World Trade Organisation tariff revenue.
Experts have said a no deal would see Ireland likely to lose its beef market as Britain would be able to get better deals from countries like Argentina.
The Murcia region of Spain could lose 75 per cent of its exports, France will put at risk a £4billion trade surplus with Britain, 42,000 jobs in the Belgium region of Flanders are dependent on Britain and £61billion of German trade is at risk.
JEREMY HUNT, the Foreign Secretary, has warned that a no-deal Brexit would mean “there will be jobs lost in Europe as well”. Correct.
The International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has also said that a no-deal is ever more likely and that the EU had to decide whether to act in the best economic interests of the people in its member states or to go on pursuing an approach determined by a “theological obsession” with the purity of Brussels’s own rules.
Throwing the ball back in Michel Barnier’s court is a sound move. Far too little emphasis has been placed on how essential it is for the EU to make a good deal with Britain.
If not, then they, not Britain, will be the ones who pay a far higher price.