IT’S BREXTRA TIME!
After PM’s crisis call, talks may go on until New Year’s Eve
THE door was yesterday left open for Brexit talks to continue until New Year’s Eve as Boris Johnson vowed Britain ‘won’t be walking away’.
In a dramatic move, the Prime Minister abandoned his threat to pull the plug on negotiations amid signs of a possible breakthrough.
Mr Johnson warned that the two sides remained ‘ very far apart’ and that a No Deal Brexit remained most likely, but he added: ‘Where there is life, there is hope.’
Sources in Brussels last night said the EU had ditched its demand for a ‘ratchet clause’ to keep the UK tied to changes in standards on labour, the environment and state subsidies.
Mr Johnson had said that no prime minister could accept a situation where the EU could automatically ‘punish’ the UK with tariffs if it failed to follow future regulations from Brussels. Instead, negotiators are looking at the possibility of a system of independent arbitration that could be triggered if a difference in rules caused a significant distortion on trade.
That movement led one German diplomat to say they believed a deal was now more likely than not, although Cabinet sources said Mr Johnson was ‘downbeat’ when he briefed colleagues yesterday.
Britain and the EU had set yesterday as the deadline to decide whether there was any point continuing talks on a trade deal.
But following a 20-minute telephone call at lunchtime, Mr Johnson and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen declared that they had agreed to ‘go the extra mile’.
In a joint statement announcing their decision not to abandon talks, they said: ‘Despite the exhaustion after almost a year of negotiations, despite the fact that deadlines have been missed over and over we think it is responsible at this point to go the extra mile. We have accordingly mandated our negotiators to continue the talks and to see whether an agreement can even at this late stage be reached.’
The Prime Minister and Commission president did not set a new deadline for a deal, but it is expected they will speak again in the latter half of this week.
One EU diplomat last night suggested talks could go down to the wire, saying: ‘The only deadline that matters is December 31’.
In a televised statement following yesterday’s phone call, Mrs von der Leyen said it had been ‘constructive and useful’, in a shift in tone from her description of a dinner with the Prime Minister in Brussels on Wednesday as ‘lively and interesting’.
The Prime Minister updated the Cabinet on the situation during a brief ten-minute call afterwards. He expressed his frustration that he has not been able to speak directly to key European leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron.
Brussels insists that the Commission is leading the negotiations on behalf of the 27 member states so Mr Johnson should continue dealing with Mrs von der Leyen.
In a television interview yesterday afternoon, Mr Johnson said: ‘I think the UK should continue to try, and I think that is what the people of this country would want me to do.
‘We’re going to continue to try and we’re going to try with all our hearts and be as creative as we possibly can, but what we can’t do is compromise on that fundamental nature of what Brexit is all about which is us being able to control our laws, control our fisheries, it’s very, very simple.
‘I think our friends get it, and we remain willing to talk and will continue to do so.’
But Mr Johnson said he still believed ‘the most likely thing now is, of course, that we have to get ready’ for leaving without a deal. He insisted the UK will do ‘very, very well’, with World Trade Organization terms offering a ‘clarity and a simplicity’ that has advantages.
Lord Frost and Michel Barnier, the UK and EU’s chief negotiators, will today continue negotiations in Brussels.
Ahead of the telephone call yesterday, the pair had held discussions until 11pm on Saturday night. Ireland’s foreign minister Simon Coveney yesterday said negotiators were ‘ tight- lipped’ over the detail.
‘That is a sign that there are serious discussions ongoing and neither side is breaking confidence and I regard that as a good sign,’ he said. But he suggested a deal ‘really needs to be done over the next coming days’, adding: ‘If this is to fail we cannot allow failure to happen with 24 hours to go before a cliff-edge.’
One German diplomatic source last night said the chances were ‘55 per cent to 45 for a deal’.
In today’s Daily Mail, Alexander von Schoenburg, editor-at-large at German newspaper Bild, reveals that a breakthrough in talks came following an intervention by Mrs Merkel.
He writes: ‘Germany did throw its weight around. Yesterday’s change of course is a sign of hope,
‘We will try with all our hearts’
that Paris – and with it Brussels – is coming to its senses.’
Earlier yesterday, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab suggested the problems in talks were partly because the EU is ‘nervous that the UK could actually do rather well, that we will actually thrive’.
Appearing on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme, he implied the Government was open to a sector by sector approach to changes in standards. He said they would not accept a ‘a nuclear style type reaction where tariffs go up and we are back in the same old drama and soap opera every couple of years or even sooner than that, just because there is a particular issue around a particular sector’.
‘I think it is about making sure we’ve got a relationship we can preserve and nurture that isn’t actually going to continue to be a thorn in both our sides,’ he added.
Asked whether the value of the pound will drop if there is No Deal, Mr Raab told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: ‘I think some of that is already baked in. I think there is likely to be... there has already been currency fluctuations.’
IT’S a mark of how slowly the mills of these Brexit negotiations are grinding that the word ‘useful’ can suddenly spark a frisson of optimism.
This was how European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described her brief chat with Boris Johnson yesterday. Crucially, she went on to say the conversation had also been ‘ constructive’ enough for discussions to continue beyond the latest so-called deadline.
True, the Brexit divorce is still mired in recrimination and seemingly fundamental differences. But while both parties stay at the table, an amicable settlement at least remains a possibility.
As Mr Johnson put it: ‘Where there’s life, there’s hope.’ It was all rather downbeat, but after Friday’s bombastic exchanges threatening grounded aircraft and gunboats in the Channel, it was something of a relief.
So are we really any closer to a deal? Both l eaders brushed off any notion of a breakthrough but the political stargazers sensed a hint of forward momentum.
There was a suggestion that Brussels has offered to scrap its hated ‘ratchet’ clause, under which Britain could be punished for failing to adopt future EU rules.
If true, this would be a significant development and, with some reciprocal movement on fishing rights, could be the key to breaking the deadlock.
Meanwhile, the grim consequences of No Deal grow more apparent by the day, as Whitehall ‘war-games’ the anticipated pandemonium. This includes a massive hit to the farming, food, chemical, haulage and automotive industries, serious border disruption, issues over sharing sensitive information and the possibility of violent clashes over fishing grounds.
Taken together, they add up to a period of nightmarish chaos and for Mr Johnson to underplay that last week – saying things would be ‘wonderful’ – was disingenuous.
However, the Mail does not question his desire to forge a deal and he does have a flair for pulling rabbits out of hats, as he proved with the Withdrawal Agreement.
But t he t i me f or g l i bness a nd grandstanding is over. Arguing about who would suffer most from No Deal is also a distraction. It would be hideous for all concerned – and a shocking indictment of those who allowed it to happen.
On the other hand, Mr Johnson’s prize for engineering a successful outcome – and one which represents a true unshackling of Britain – would be immense.
Having deli v e r e d Brexit, r outed Corbynism and won a Parliamentary landslide, he has already achieved more than any Conservative l eader since Margaret Thatcher.
If he can add to that list seeing us through the Covid crisis and securing this freetrade agreement, his place in the Tory pantheon is absolutely assured.