Give me deal I can sell to Britain, May tells Europe
THERESA May last night warned EU leaders that she needs a Brexit deal she can ‘defend to our people’ – as they lined up to demand billions more from Britain in divorce payments.
With senior Eurosceptics urging her to pull the plug on the talks, the Prime Minister issued a blunt message to EU leaders that she cannot be pushed much further, after agreeing to make a £20 billion divorce payment last month.
In a 15-minute presentation over dinner in Brussels last night, Mrs May also warned fellow leaders that time was running out to move on from divorce proceedings to a future trade deal.
She said there was a ‘clear and urgent imperative’ for them to ‘enable us to move forward together’ when they report on the state of the Brexit negotiations today.
A senior UK official said EU leaders had to understand the ‘difficult political backdrop’ the PM faces back home.
German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron offered Mrs May a high-profile show of support, greeting her on arrival at the Brussels summit where they chatted animatedly with her for the cameras. Mrs Merkel, whose govern- ment has started drawing up secret plans for a trade deal with the UK, struck an upbeat note, saying there were ‘encouraging’ signs that the negotiations would be ready to move on to trade by December.
In another positive sign for Mrs May, it emerged that Sweden is drawing up plans for a future trade relationship with the UK.
But other EU leaders continued to press the PM for more ‘detail’ on how much the UK is willing to hand over in a divorce settlement.
Some in the EU are calling for the UK to pay as much as £90billion and none is satisfied with the current £20billion offer.
Mrs May has privately indicated that she is willing to increase the offer on the table. But, with public opinion resistant to handing over a large cheque, she is reluctant to name a significantly higher sum or agree to their demand to set it out in writing.
Last night EU leaders dined on a starter of butternut gnocchi and smoked haddock with a parmesan emulsion and a main course of pheasant supreme served with cep mushrooms and a pear filled with cranberries.
Mrs May was expected to make her Brexit pitch as they enjoyed a modest dessert of fresh pineapple followed by coffee.
She urged leaders to seize the offer she made last month in her Florence speech to honour Britain’s financial commitments to the EU as part of a two-year transitional deal.
The PM said she had made the offer after recognising that the Brexit talks had stalled in the summer. She told them she had ‘recognised the difficulty the proc- ess was in’, adding: ‘I took stock, listened to what people in the UK were saying and what my friends and partners in Europe were saying and I made a step forward.’
Mrs May insisted the speech had kick-started talks, but added: ‘We must work together to get to an outcome we can stand behind and defend to our people.’
She urged EU leaders to be ‘optimistic and ambitious about what we can achieve, because we share the same set of beliefs’. And she confirmed that the UK remained ‘unconditionally committed to maintaining Europe’s security’.
EU leaders will rule this morning whether ‘sufficient progress’ has been made in divorce talks to move on to trade. British officials were downbeat about the prospects for an immediate breakthrough, but are hoping the EU will set out a path to begin trade talks by the end of the year.
But EU leaders arriving yesterday continued to stress the need for Britain to pay more.
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, seen as one of the UK’s closest allies, said: ‘Theresa May has to come up with more clarity on what she meant by “other commitments” in her Florence speech. I phoned her last week and tried to encourage her to do that but so far she hasn’t.’
Mrs May last night reiterated a pledge to pay around £18billion into the EU budget over the next two years as part of an eventual Brexit bill.
But EU officials and leaders are adamant that the UK must further spell out how much of the bloc’s debts she is willing to pay off. Comment – Page 16
WHAT was Jeremy Corbyn doing in Brussels yesterday, apart from showboating around an EU summit in which he plays no formal role whatsoever?
By trying to pretend he’s a prime ministerin-waiting, and posturing like the world statesman he demonstrably isn’t, he only reveals his shortcomings. Indeed, his claim that Labour was ‘ ready to take up responsibility’ for the talks simply served to expose the party’s woeful Brexit policies.
For if – as Mr Corbyn now insists – he rules out walking away from a bad deal (and his position changes by the week), he would have no negotiating to do. Instead he would turn up, pay whatever stratospheric sum was demanded and swallow whatever deal was on the table.
Most troubling are his meetings with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier. Did Mr Corbyn share details of his plans to wreck crucial Brexit legislation, or to hamper Government efforts to prepare for no deal?
Mr Barnier should be wary of interfering in domestic politics. As for Mr Corbyn, it raises the very serious question: whose side is he really on?
Meanwhile, Theresa May can take heart from Angela Merkel’s suggestion that trade talks could begin in December – especially as we know Germany is drawing up plans for a post-Brexit trade deal.
Last night, despite further demands from EU leaders for a detailed account of exactly how much Britain will pay, Mrs May rightly refused to budge one inch from the generous offer she made in Florence.
Over dinner, she also delivered some home truths to any EU leaders or Brussels bureaucrats who might try to punish us for Brexit, saying they must agree a deal she can defend ‘to our people’.
There is, as she argued, a ‘clear and urgent imperative’ to move forward with the talks. The alternative – which is in no- one’s interests – was spelled out in the clearest terms by Lord Lawson this week: that we walk away and go it alone.