Britain, EU hammer out a Brexit draft agreement
LONDON — After months of struggle and delay, feints and setbacks, Brexit negotiators for the United Kingdom and the European Union have produced a draft agreement that sets out how Britain will exit the political and economic union it helped create a generation ago.
The withdrawal deal, a technical tome written in euro-legalize and said to exceed 400 pages, will be discussed at an emergency cabinet meeting called by Prime Minister Theresa May for Wednesday afternoon.
May’s spokesman said cabinet ministers have been invited to begin reading the documents ahead of the meeting, where “next steps will be considered” over Britain’s exit from the world’s biggest and richest free trade zone.
What will happen at the cabinet meeting is unknown — although May’s supporters say the prime minister would not be presenting the draft deal if she didn’t think she could muscle it through.
But it is possible some cabinet members, finally faced with the text of May’s softer, slower-moving compromise deal, will balk — and resign or seek delay or press for a return to the negotiating table.
Yet if the cabinet endorses May’s proposed withdrawal terms, the next step would be a Brexit summit attended by leaders of the European Union’s remaining 27 member states in Brussel this month, with Nov. 24 and 25 penciled in as possible dates.
Following approval by the European leaders, the treaty would go to the British Parliament, where it would face an uncertain fate.
The Telegraph newspaper reported that there could be two cabinet meetings Wednesday: “one to present the deal and another to approve or reject it.”
Whatever happens, this deal is just the first stage of the lengthy process of ratifying Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. To follow are negotiations over Britain’s future trade, security and economic relations with Europe — including side deals about immigration levels. For the past two years, the greatest debate over Brexit has not been waged between Brussels and London, but within May’s fractious Conservative Party, composed of “leavers” and “remainers.”
Hardline Brexiteers have pushed for a decisive split from European bureaucrats and courts, from EU rules and regulations; others, led by May, have sought a softer Brexit, a bundle of compromise that keeps Britain more closely aligned with Europe, to better protect the British economy.
On Wednesday, Brexiteer Boris Johnson, who quit his job as foreign secretary over May’s proposals in July, told the BBC that he hoped the Cabinet would “chuck it out.”
“It’s vassal state stuff. For the first time in a 1,000 years, this place, this parliament will not have a say over the laws that govern this country,” Johnson said.
Johnson and his allies have said May’s Brexit would leave Britain “a rule taker” versus “a rule maker,” subject to following Brussels laws for trade, without having much say in how they are written.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, a high profile Brexiteer, told the BBC: “White flags have gone up all over Whitehall. It is a betrayal of the Union.”
The leaders of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which helps to prop up May’s minority government, sounded skeptical about the deal.
Sammy Wilson, the DUP’s Brexit spokesman, told the BBC that they will be reading the agreement closely to ensure that Northern Ireland isn’t treated differently from the rest of the United Kingdom.
“The rumors we are hearing so far would indicate that that’s not going to be the case,” he said.
Details of the draft withdrawal were not released to the public Tuesday.
How to avoid the return to a hard border between Northern Ireland, which will remain in the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland, which is a member of EU, has been one of the toughest issues facing the negotiators.
The Europeans have insisted that in the case that a future freetrade deal is not secured, Northern Ireland should remain in the European customs union.
May has said that is not acceptable because it undercuts the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.