Boris: 5 weeks to seal Brexit deal – or we walk away
Tough-talking PM puts deadline on trade talks
BORIS Johnson today warns Brussels that he will walk away from trade talks in five weeks unless the EU ‘rethinks’ its demands.
In a toughly worded ultimatum, the Prime Minister says there is ‘no sense’ in allowing faltering trade talks to continue beyond October 15, when EU leaders are due to hold a major summit in Brussels.
Mr Johnson says there is ‘still an agreement to be had’ but says he ‘cannot and will not compromise on the fundamentals of what it means to be an independent country to get it’, such as the freedom for the UK to set its own laws and fish its own waters.
And he insists that a No Deal departure would still be a ‘good outcome’ from which the UK would ‘prosper mightily’ as it exploits its new freedoms outside the EU.
‘There needs to be an agreement with our European friends by the time of the
European Council on October 15 if it’s going to be in force by the end of the year,’ he says.
‘So there is no sense in thinking about timelines that go beyond that point. If we can’t agree by then, then I do not see that there will be a free trade agreement between us, and we should both accept that and move on.’
The PM’s comments come ahead of crunch talks in London tomorrow between his chief negotiator David Frost and his EU counterpart Michel
Barnier. Lord Frost yesterday vowed he would not ‘blink’ in the face of EU demands to accept continuing Brussels oversight of key areas of British law.
He urged Mr Barnier to ‘take our position seriously’ and act now to salvage talks.
Lord Frost said the UK was not willing to be a ‘client state’ of Brussels in any circumstances, adding: ‘We are not going to compromise on the fundamentals of having control of our own laws.’
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the negotiations were facing a ‘moment of reckoning’ this week – and warned that thousands of jobs across the EU would be put at risk unless Brussels relented.
Mr Raab said there would be a ‘significant downside’ for the economies of EU member states if there was no trade deal, with exports of cars and other goods likely to be hit.
The Department for International Trade will today launch an advertising campaign to warn EU businesses they must prepare for the changes that will come when the Brexit transition period finishes at the end of the year.
Trade talks have been deadlocked for weeks over the EU’s demands on fishing and the so-called ‘level playing field’.
Brussels wants EU trawlers to be guaranteed their current access to Britain’s fishing grounds for ever. Mr Raab told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show that this was unacceptable, adding: ‘Having seen UK fisheries and the fishing industry pretty much decimated as a result of EU membership, the EU’s argument is we should keep control of access to our own fisheries permanently low. That can’t be right.’
Some senior ministers are privately concerned that the UK is not ready to cope with the impact of leaving the EU without a trade deal at the end of this year.
It would leave the UK trading on World Trade Organisation terms, with tariffs on some goods in both directions. Hauliers have warned of disruption to supply lines if there is no agreement on border controls.
‘The UK would prosper mightily’