EU threatening to block £5billion of British food exports

BRUSSELS has threatened to block British food exports worth £5billion a year unless Boris Johnson agrees to accept EU trade rules.

The extraordinary warning was made by the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, during tense talks with his counterpart David Frost on a future trade deal.

Mr Barnier hinted at the move in an angry statement following the end of the latest negotiating round on Thursday night.

he said there were ‘uncertainties’ about Britain’s biosecurity rules which might make it impossible to list the UK for ‘thirdcountry’ status when the transition period finishes at the end of this year. Without this, farmers would be unable to export meat and dairy produce to the EU from January.

British sources confirmed Mr Barnier had raised the ‘incendiary’ threat several times during Brexit talks in recent months, despite the fact the UK currently follows the same biosecurity rules as the EU and has pledged to maintain the same or higher standards after leaving. The move would be a disaster for many British farmers, with exports to the EU said to be worth around £5billion a year.

A Government spokesman said: ‘The right to export is the absolute basis for a relationship between two countries that trade agricultural goods. It is a licence to export and entirely separate from the issue of food standards. It would be very unusual for the EU to deny the UK listing.’

Tory MP Ian Liddell-Grainger last night condemned the EU’s tactics. ‘This shows the EU in its true colours,’ he said. ‘British farm standards are amongst the best in the world and they know that.

‘But Barnier and co are a bunch of stuckup, arrogant, protectionist bureaucrats who couldn’t care less about the facts or the needs of consumers. If they were to go ahead with this it would simply serve as a reminder to the British people of why we are leaving.’

But an EU source defended its stance, saying: ‘This is not about creating leverage in the negotiations. The moment the UK has a biosecurity system in place, it will be added on to the EU list. It’s bewildering that they still don’t.’

Despite the row, UK sources insisted this week’s Brexit trade talks had made some progress. The two sides will meet again next week in Brussels. No10 said a deal was still possible before the PM’s mid-October deadline provided there was ‘more realism on the EU side about what it means for the UK to have left the EU’. A UK negotiating figure said talks had been ‘constructive’, but the two sides remained ‘a long way’ apart on fishing and state subsidies.

he suggested, however, that the UK would continue negotiating even if the EU follows through on its threat to take legal action against the Government for alleged breaches of the Withdrawal Agreement.

Mr Barnier is also understood to have threatened to use provisions in the Irish backstop to block the export of food from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

Last night Mr Barnier told a group of MePs that the EU is reluctant to offer concessions to the UK on state aid and fisheries.

THis was the week the Eu’s mask not so much slipped as avalanched.

and what it exposed should have made voters very relieved that we are leaving the bloc. Throwing spectacular tantrums, Brussels is seeking revenge after Boris Johnson vowed to tweak the Withdrawal agreement to safeguard northern ireland’s place in the uK.

But why was he compelled to trigger such an inflammatory – albeit pragmatic – power play? Because the Eu is blackmailing Britain by pledging to block food exports worth billions to the Continent unless we surrender to outrageous trade demands.

Disturbingly, it is also holding a gun to our head by threatening to impose, under the terms of the exit treaty, a customs border in the irish sea if there is no Deal – splitting the uK and jeopardising the peace process. Perhaps Mr Johnson shouldn’t have signed. But it was in the furnace of last year’s Parliamentary meltdown, when remainers came close to installing a rogue Government to overturn Brexit.

He also had little reason to believe the Eu would deliberately renege on written assurances to negotiate a deal respecting us as a sovereign nation. instead, it has embarked on an expansionist land grab.

For that reason, Mr Johnson is rightly creating a legal safety net for northern ireland. But couldn’t he have ditched talks – perfectly legally – citing Eu bad faith, rather than warning he is prepared to breach international law by tearing up the agreement in a new Bill?

of course as Brexit talks enter the final stages, both sides are playing hardball.

unlike his predecessor Theresa May, Boris refuses to be bullied.

now it is in everyone’s interests to cast aside the acrimony and thrash out a mutually-beneficial deal.