Region’s city leaders join UK-wide demand for Brexit settlement
PM to call on EU chiefs to give ground after fresh talks in Northern Ireland
POLITICAL LEADERS from 24 of the UK’s major towns and cities have joined forces to demand a radical post-Brexit settlement that includes new tax-raising powers, upgraded transport systems and a cash injection for mental health and employment services.
The Key Cities group, which made the demands in a new report released yesterday, brings together influential areas across the UK, with the Yorkshire cities and towns of Hull, Doncaster, Wakefield and Bradford all represented. Together, the 24 towns and cities have a combined population of 6.38 million and an economic output of £130bn.
In the report, the group calls for devolved powers to raise a new tourism tax, as well as funding to roll out zero carbon transport across their areas, extra money for mental health services for young people, and greater powers to tailor skills and employment programmes locally.
It argues that even relatively limited support and policy change from the Government would deliver an extra £258bn of growth for the UK economy over the next 10 years.
The chairman of Key Cities and Wakefield Council’s leader Peter Box said: “The referendum wasn’t just about Brexit. It was a demand by the millions who live outside the centre of power in London, for a new settlement that gives them the opportunities and living standards denied to too many.
“This unprecedented and detailed move by 24 varied cities across the country is both an offer to work with the Government to deliver that new settlement but also a clear demand that we need the tools and the resources to build the better country everyone wants.
“This should be a no-brainer for a Prime Minister looking for domestic wins at a time when she is beset by multiple challenges linked to her withdrawal agreement.”
Wakefield MP Mary Creagh added: “Wakefield is one of the five areas which has suffered the biggest budget cuts since 2010, yet we are one of the country’s fastest growing economies.
“With a new settlement, Wakefield can achieve so much more. Wakefield is proof that culture is a driver of growth and regeneration. The freedom to have a tourism tax to improve infrastructure would help us capitalise on our status as the national capital of sculpture.”
THERESA MAY is set to head back to Brussels tomorrow for talks with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, as she seeks changes to the Brexit deal which was rejected by MPs last month.
The Prime Minister is expected to press the case for the Withdrawal Agreement to be reopened as she seeks alternative arrangements for avoiding a hard border in Ireland after Brexit.
However, the Prime Minister risked a backlash from Tory Brexiteers and the DUP yesterday by suggesting that the controversial Northern Irish backstop may remain as part of the final deal.
Asked how she could convince the people of Northern Ireland to accept a Brexit deal which was stripped of the backstop, Mrs May said: “I’m not proposing to persuade people to accept a deal that doesn’t contain that insurance policy for the future.
“What Parliament has said is that they believe there should be changes made to the backstop.”
She made the comments following a speech in Northern Ireland in which she insisted that she would be able to secure a Commons majority for a Brexit deal that “commands broad support” in the province.
She added that while it was a “concerning time” she would “find a way to deliver Brexit” that honours commitments to keep the border open.
Mrs May will today hold talks with Northern Ireland’s political leaders including the DUP’s Arlene Foster, who has promised to tell the Prime Minister the proposed border backstop “drives a coach and horses through the Belfast Agreement’s principle of consent” and would effective- ly create a new border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Meanwhile, former First Minister Lord Trimble confirmed he was considering a legal challenge to the backstop over concerns it breaches the Good Friday Agreement.
The Prime Minister’s Brussels visit tomorrow will be her first formal meeting with senior EU officials since the deal which she reached with Mr Juncker in November went down to overwhelming defeat in the House of Commons and since MPs voted for the removal of the backstop.
European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said EU officials were expecting Mrs May to “come along to spell out to us her ideas for what happens next.
“President Juncker has been in constant contact with her and will look forward to seeing her... to pursue these discussions.
“But we have to repeat what you are aware of, that is that the EU’s position, the Commission’s position, is clear that we are awaiting once again to see what the Prime Minister has to tell us.”
Downing Street said Mrs May had warned the weekly meeting of the Cabinet that the talks with Brussels would not be easy.
However ministers agreed it was a “positive” development that last week’s Commons vote had made clear for the first time that Parliament would back a deal if there were changes to the backstop.
“The Prime Minister said that our objective now was to secure a legally binding way of guaranteeing we cannot be trapped indefinitely
in the backstop,” the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said.
“The PM said that the discussions with the EU will not be easy but Parliament has sent a clear message that a change to the backstop is the only way to get the deal approved.”
Mr Juncker is to meet Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the Commission’s Berlaymont HQ today.
In Westminster, the working group bringing together Tories from both sides of the party was continuing efforts to agree an alternative to the backstop.
51 The number of days left until the UK is due to leave the EU after invoking Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon