The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
No-deal pull-out would be catastrophic: Starmer
International Trade Secretary Liam Fox puts chances of it happening at 60-40
A no deal Brexit would be “catastrophic”, Labour warned after Cabinet minister Liam Fox put the chances of failure to reach agreement at 60-40.
The international trade secretary blamed the “intransigence” of the European Union for the impasse in Brexit talks.
The prominent Brexiteer said he believed the risk of a no deal scenario had increased, pinning the blame on the European Commission and Brussels’ chief negotiator Michel Barnier.
But shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said Prime Minister Theresa May’s “reckless red lines” had contributed to the difficulties, along with splits in the Tory ranks and “fantasy Brexiteer promises”.
He indicated that Parliament should step in to prevent the UK crashing out without a deal.
“No deal would be a catastrophic failure of government, which no government should survive,” he said.
“The cause: PM’s reckless red lines, Tory divisions & fantasy Brexiteer promises. Parliament has a duty to prevent it.”
Pro-EU Tories suggested that remaining in the single market was the best way to resolve the situation after the rejection of Mrs May’s Chequers blueprint by Brussels.
Former Cabinet minister Nicky Morgan said keeping the UK in the single market as part of the European Economic Area (EEA) or European Free Trade Association was “clearly (the) right option” adding “will PM move that way or does Parliament have to force issue?”
Former minister George Freeman said that after the “failure of the 2016-18 Brexit Cabinet to plan, prepare for and negotiate a sensible, smooth and probusiness bespoke Brexit” more Tories were coming round to the view that an EEA/EFTA solution was necessary.
Dr Fox used a Sunday Times interview to give his pessimistic assessment of the negotiations.
“I think the intransigence of the commission is pushing us towards no deal,” he said.
“We have set out the basis in which a deal can happen but if the EU decides that the theological obsession of the unelected is to take priority over the economic wellbeing of the people of Europe then it’s a bureaucrats’ Brexit – not a people’s Brexit – then there is only going to be one outcome.”