May in new Brexit row with Brussels
Dispute over comments made on China visit
POLITICS: Theresa May has sparked a new row with Brussels after she warned the UK would seek to limit the rights of EU citizens who come to Britain during the post-Brexit transition.
The Prime Minister said those arriving after March 2019 could not expect the same rights as those who came before.
THERESA MAY has sparked a new row with Brussels after she warned the UK would seek to limit the rights of EU citizens who come to Britain during the postBrexit transition.
Speaking during the second day of her official visit to China, the Prime Minister said those arriving after the Brexit date of March 2019 could not expect to enjoy the same rights as those who came before.
She met President Xi Jinping in Beijing in the diplomatic high point of her three-day trip, where commercial deals worth a total of £9bn are said to have been signed.
But her intervention on Brexit provoked an angry response from senior EU figures who insisted EU law, including the free movement of people, must apply throughout the proposed 21-month transitional period.
Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s co-ordinator on Brexit, said the UK had to remain subject to the entire acquis, the accumulated body of EU legislation and case law, if the transition was to work.
“Citizens’ rights during the transition are not negotiable,” he said. “We will not accept that there are two sets of rights for EU citizens. For the transition to work, it must mean a continuation of the existing acquis with no exceptions.”
Ministers, however, said the EU’s demands, which emerged in negotiating guidelines published earlier this week, contradicted the terms of UK’s agreement in December with the remaining 27 member states.
In the Commons, Brexit Secretary David Davis told MPs: “In the report which we concluded and got agreement on in December, the European Union agreed that the end date of ongoing residents’ rights will be March 2019.”
Earlier, speaking to reporters, Mrs May made clear she was determined to fight the EU proposal when negotiations on the transitional arrangements begin.
“When we agreed the citizens’ rights deal in December, we did so on the basis that people who had come to the UK when we were a member of the EU had ... made a life choice and set up certain expectations and it was right that we have made an agreement that ensured they could continue their life in the way they had wanted to,” she said.
“Now, for those who come after March 2019, that will be different because they will be coming to a UK that they know will be outside the EU.
“This is a matter for negotiation for the immediate period but I’m clear there’s a difference between those people who came prior to us leaving and those who will come when they know the UK is no longer a member of the EU.”
During her visit to Beijing yesterday, Mrs May said Britain and China were enjoying a “golden era” in their relationship, and added that she wanted to “take further forward the global strategic partnership that we have established”.
Seated opposite President Xi in the opulent Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, she said there were issues on the global stage where the UK and China can “work together” as permanent members of the UN Security Council and fellow “outward-looking countries”.
With Mrs May’s discussions with Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday largely given over to trade and Brexit, the talks with Mr Xi were due to focus on global issues, including the nuclear ambitions of China’s neighbour North Korea.
Shortly before her encounter with Mr Xi, the PM learned that she had been granted the affectionate nickname “Auntie May” by some Chinese. An interviewer on TV network CCTV told her: “That’s really a kind of a call for Chinese – you’re one of the members of the family.”
Mrs May took time out from her round of official meetings to tour the Forbidden City – former home of China’s emperors – with husband Philip.