EU chief: Britain could face another 10 years of following our laws

THE UK may have to bow to European law for up to a decade after Brexit, it was claimed last night.

Brussels will demand that Britain submits to the European Court of Justice for the duration of any transitional deal, said Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat, whose tiny island nation has just taken over the rotating presidency of the EU.

Chancellor Philip Hammond is pushing for a transitional deal lasting several years to give the City more time to adjust to the country’s departure from the EU.

Mr Muscat said it was ‘quite obvious’ a transitional deal was on offer, but added: ‘It is not a transition period where British institutions take over, but it is a transition period where the European Court of Justice is still in charge of dishing out judgments and points of view.’

He said it was impossible to know how long the transition might be, but it was not in anyone’s interest ‘to try to play the game that we have very long negotiations and in the meantime have the cake and eat it’.

Mr Muscat also warned that if the European Parliament was not fully involved in the British negotiations from day one, ‘an unholy alliance’ of MEPs from different parties could sink any Brexit deal, no matter how ‘good and fair’ it was – and ‘that would be a crisis’.

Theresa May is expected to reaffirm her pledge to take Britain out of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice when she lays out her vision for Brexit in a major speech on Tuesday.

The PM’s spokesman said yesterday: ‘She will be… setting out more on our approach to Brexit as part of preparing for the negotiations and in line with our approach for global Britain and continuing to be an outward-looking nation.’

Mr Muscat’s comments came as Mrs May’s most senior MEP said she must be prepared to play hardball with EU leaders in Brexit talks.

‘We should enter these negotiations with an intention to succeed but not being afraid to walk away if we don’t get a deal we are happy with,’ said Syed Kamall, who leads the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament.

In an article for the Brexit Central website, he wrote: ‘The UK Government may have to make it clear we will not simply accept any deal and would be prepared to walk away and settle for a World Trade Organisation relationship with the EU, even though we would prefer a tailored EU-UK deal.

‘We should ask for things that would be nice to have but would not be deal breakers. The EU will do the same to the UK.’

Meanwhile, anti-Brexit campaigners will today launch new legal action to try and stop the country leaving the EU.

They will write to the Irish government saying they want a referral to the European Court of Justice on the question of whether Article 50 can be cancelled once invoked.

Mrs May’s government, marking six months in power today, has opened up a 14point poll lead over Labour.

No other Tory government in the last half century has enjoyed a ‘honeymoon period’ as long as six months into a new prime minister’s term.