PMs’ ex-aide accused of using Brexit scare tactics
WHITEHALL’S former top civil servant was accused of ‘doing Britain down’ last night after he claimed the idea of quitting the EU was ‘scary’.
Gus O’Donnell – who served as Cabinet Secretary to David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair – argued the UK would be unable to negotiate its exit from the Brussels club within the two years allowed by EU treaties.
In the latest Establishment intervention on behalf of the Remain camp, he said Britain would then be left at the mercy of other member states in requesting extra time to secure trade deals. Lord O’Donnell said this prospect was a ‘bit scary’.
His remarks triggered anger from senior ministers and Leave campaigners, who dismissed his argument as ‘ridiculous’.
They said the two-year deadline was artificial and other EU member states would be desperate to strike a deal giving them access to the UK exports market.
The row centres on the mechanism for Britain leaving the EU if the country votes Out on June 23. Under the process set out
‘EU needs a deal as much as we do’
in the Lisbon Treaty, a nation has two years to complete a deal once it formally declares it will withdraw from the EU.
Lord O’Donnell said he was in the camp that ‘doesn’t think we can do it in two years’ because it will be a ‘very complex process’. He added: ‘We have to negotiate our entry to the single market, we have to negotiate our future relationship with the EU and then we have to negotiate our trade treaties with all other countries.
‘At the end of two years, anything we haven’t negotiated has to be extended by unanimity of a vote excluding us, so that’s a bit scary.’
The ex-mandarin told BBC Radio 4’s Today that the Article 50 rules on the process were ‘not written in a neutral way’ and warned it would be a ‘rather biased playing field’.
If the UK failed to get a deal within two years, the country would revert to World Trade Organisation rules, which would include significant tariffs.
Lord O’Donnell stopped short of directly declaring for the Remain camp but critics pointed out his arguments were almost identical to the Government’s.
The Leave campaign flatly rejects the idea that Article 50 would have to be triggered immediately after the referendum. Its experts insist there is no legal require- ment to do so and a series of informal negotiations could take place first.
Justice minister Dominic Raab said: ‘I used to negotiate treaties and I can tell you that if we voted to leave we could do so and negotiate an exit agreement.’
Mr Raab said the UK was the fifth biggest economy in the world and a key export market for the EU.
‘Of course we’d strike a new deal, and relatively soon,’ the minister added.
‘For the Lord Humphrey of Whitehall to go on the Today programme and say it doesn’t matter what the British people say in this referendum … they’re going to be ignored anyway, is manna from heaven for those of us arguing that we do need to send a clear message in this referendum.’
Conservative peer and ex- chancellor Lord Lamont said: ‘My former colleague Gus O’Donnell seems to be arguing not that the EU is good or bad but it is impossible to get out of it … This is absurd. The EU needs a deal as much as we do.
‘If it took longer than two years to negotiate a trade deal, that would be as much to the disadvantage of the EU as to the UK. If more time was needed, the EU would have every incentive to strike a deal with its largest trading partner, the UK.’
Matthew Elliott of Vote Leave said: ‘There’s a European free trade zone that stretches from Iceland to Turkey – the idea that the UK would not be part of this after we vote Leave is unrealistic.
‘Lord O’Donnell’s comments sum up the civil service’s decades- old defeatist attitude which has frustrated any attempts to get reform in the EU. The In campaign should stop doing Britain down.’
PRICES in the UK are £200 lower per household as a result of EU membership, the Britain Stronger in Europe group will claim today.
A London School of Economics study claims that, as a result of EU free trade deals, savings for Britain total £5.3billion a year.
The findings are likely to be dismissed by Leave campaigners, who argue the UK will be able to negotiate its own free trade deals with EU members.