Gove: We can do a deal... but EU has to be f lexible
MICHAEL Gove insisted a trade deal can be reached with Brussels but he warned there was no question of the UK agreeing to follow EU rules.
The Cabinet Office Minister said that while he remained ‘confident’ a deal can be done, achieving this will require ‘flexibility’ from European leaders.
It comes amid reports that Britain has increased planning for a no-deal Brexit, with the UK preparing to ‘walk away’ from trade talks next month unless the EU gives ground.
Civil servants who had been moved to deal with the virus crisis have now been sent back to work full-time on no-deal preparations.
Meanwhile Mr Gove’s opposite number on the Labour benches, Rachel Reeves, said her party may push for an extension to the trade talks – meaning the UK would be tied to the EU’s rules into 2021.
But the Government insists it would rather leave without a trade deal than extend the negotiations with Brussels, which have been taking place remotely.
The latest round ended in deadlock on Friday, with the UK’s chief negotiator David Frost saying ‘very little progress’ had been made.
Mr Gove told Sky News: ‘The EU want us to accept their rules even though we are outside their club and they want to have access to our fish even though we’ve left.
‘We are making it clear to the EU that we can’t do a deal on those terms but I am confident that a deal is there to be done, it just requires a degree of flexibility on the EU’s side which I am sure they will appreciate the need to show.’
Speaking later on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, he said the talks were going ‘well’. He added: ‘There’s been a good conversation. The challenge for the EU is to show a little bit of their fabled flexibility.’
The Government’s exit operations (XO) no-deal planning committee, chaired by Mr Gove, will now sit regularly to prepare for the prospect that no trade deal is struck.
The UK legally left the EU at the end of January but is locked in a transition period until December 31. But a new poll shows that 49 per cent of leave voters want the transition period to be extended.
And Miss Reeves has suggested that Labour may push for a Brexit transition extension.
The shadow cabinet office minister said on Sky News: ‘The most important thing is we get a good deal, not any deal, but the best deal we can have.
‘The last thing our country and our economy needs at the moment is a further shock that could put jobs and livelihoods at risk.’