MP urges May to take hard line if EU won’t discuss a trade deal
THERESA May should stop flogging a “dead horse” and suspend Brexit negotiations if the EU refuses to start serious trade talks at a landmark summit next month, according to former Welsh Secretary and ex-Brexit Minister David Jones.
The Clwyd West Conservative MP argues that if talks do not start on a free trade agreement she should halt discussions. Mr Jones says the PM should then focus on preparing for the UK to use World Trade Organisation rules.
Mr Jones, a senior figure in the Leave Means Leave group, which wants the UK to leave the single market and the customs union, was due to tell a conference that Britain has shown “outstanding patience and goodwill since serving the Article 50 notice”. He said: “It is high time the EU stopped its prevarication. If the Prime Minister does not receive confirmation that the EU will now start talking seriously about the future relationship we should tell them we are suspending negotiations until they are ready to do so.
“There is nothing to be gained by continuing to flog a dead horse.”
Arguing that the UK should “serious preparations for life outside the EU,” he will say the country should invest in the “personnel, infrastructure and IT needed to commence trading with the EU on World Trade Organisation terms”.
He will add: “Putting those arrangements in place will have the doubly beneficial effect of providing reassurance to business and signalling to the EU that we are not disposed to be strung along.”
Conservative MEP David Campbell Bannerman, the organiser of the Deal or No Deal: What are the options? conference in London, said: “We are now approaching the end game with regards to negotiations.”
If the UK did not agree to “get on with trade talks,” he said, “Britain should announce that we are moving to a WTO rules arrangement on leaving. This will allow more time to be spent negotiating non-trade areas such as customs, politics and aviation. It is time for a deal or no deal decision.”
However, Cardiff South and Penarth Labour MP Stephen Doughty was adamant that the UK needs to secure a deal. He said: “This comes as no surprise to many of us who have warned for months that the Prime Minister is being dragged off a cliff edge by extreme no-deal Brexiteers. To leave the EU without a deal would [create] catastrophic risks for our economy, jobs and public services. The Prime Minister should resist the siren call of the extremists on her own benches. The British and Welsh public have the right to have a say on the final deal via Parliament and if they don’t like what they see to reject it.”