NOW EU TRADE TALKS TURN UGLY
UK’s chief negotiator in Twitter bust-up with Barnier over threat to block food exports from Britain
BORIS Johnson’s chief Brexit negotiator was locked in an extraordinary public spat with his EU counterpart last night.
David Frost traded blows with Michel Barnier on social media when he denied threatening to block British food exports if trade talks collapsed.
Lord Frost said the EU negotiator ‘explicitly’ made the threat and warned it could lead to food from Great Britain being banned from sale in Northern Ireland. The row threatens to overshadow troubled talks on a trade deal, which are due to resume this week.
MPs will vote tonight on the controversial Internal Market Bill, which the Prime Minister says is needed to prevent the EU holding Britain to ransom over Northern Ireland.
Ministers are braced for a rebellion by Tory MPs, who are alarmed by the Government’s admission that the legislation will break international law by overriding parts of the Brexit deal negotiated by the PM last year.
However, the majority of rebels are expected to hold fire until next week, when they will try to amend it to include a ‘parliamentary lock’ on powers that would breach the deal.
Justice Secretary Robert Buckland yesterday defended the legislation, saying it was ‘in accordance with the most honourable traditions of the British state’.
Mr Buckland has faced calls to quit, with critics saying the move is incompatible with his own oath as Lord Chancellor to uphold the law. He repeatedly ducked questions about his own position yesterday before finally answering: ‘If I see the rule of law being broken in a way I find unacceptable then of course I will go.’
British negotiators have accused Brussels of threatening to block food exports worth £5billion a year to the EU if there is no trade deal.
Mr Barnier yesterday said he was ‘not refusing to list’ Britain as a soand called ‘third country’ for food export purposes. But he said the listing could only take place when the UK explained its biosecurity rules.
Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said the UK was damaging its reputation, and described the idea of a food blockade as British ‘spin’.
In an exchange with Barnier on Twitter last night, Lord Frost hit back: ‘The EU knows perfectly well all the details of our food standards rules because we are operating EU rules.’
He added: ‘It has been made clear to us in the current talks that there is no guarantee of listing us. I am afraid it has also been said to us explicitly in these talks that if we are not listed we will not be able to move food to Northern Ireland.’
Mr Barnier denied that the EU’s position was a ‘threat to the integrity of the UK’, but added: ‘We could not have been clearer about the consequences of Brexit.’
Tony Blair yesterday became the fourth former PM to criticise the Internal Market Bill, following on from Theresa May, Gordon Brown Sir John Major. In a joint article with Sir John, Mr Blair urged MPs to reject the ‘shaming’ legislation, saying it imperils the Irish peace process, trade negotiations and the UK’s integrity.
But Business Minister Nadhim Zahawi last night said Lord Frost’s revelations about EU tactics showed ‘exactly why no minister, no responsible Government can be a bystander and watch a part of the United Kingdom be harmed in this way’.
Tory veteran Sir Roger Gale confirmed he will vote against the Second Reading of the legislation tonight. He said: ‘I am not a serial rebel, but I do have principles. If we enter into an international agreement, we have to stand by it.’
Sources suggested he would be joined by only a small number of colleagues tonight.
But many more are expected to back a bid by former minister Sir Bob Neill to place a ‘parliamentary lock’ on the power to break the EU Withdrawal Agreement. Downing Street sources rejected the idea of a lock, saying the PM was clear the legislation was needed to prevent the EU driving a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.