Section:GDN 1N PaGe:8 Edition Date:190827 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 26/8/2019 20:21 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
- The Guardian Tuesday 27 August 2019
(^8) News
Politics
No trade deal if UK reneges
on Brexit bill, EU sources say
Jennifer Rankin
Brussels
The European Union would refuse to
negotiate a trade deal with the UK if
the government reneged on the Brexit
bill, EU sources have said.
At the G7 summit in Biarritz, Boris
Johnson said it was a “simple state-
ment of reality” that in the event of
no-deal Brexit, the UK would withhold
much of the £39bn fi nancial settle-
ment agreed by Theresa May.
Brussels sources have warned that
future trade talks would be blocked
until the UK agreed to a settlement.
The financial settlement was a
“totemic” issue for EU member states,
one offi cial said. “The message will
be: ‘Honour your debts, or we are not
even going to start talking about a
trade deal,’” the source said, refl ecting
a widespread view among diplomats.
Jean-Claude Piris , a former head of
the EU council legal service, tweeted:
“If the UK refuses to pay its debts to the
EU, then the EU will not accept to nego-
tiate a trade agreement with the UK.”
In the event of Britain leaving the
EU without a deal, the painstakingly
negotiated withdrawal agreement
made between Theresa May and the
EU would collapse, including the tran-
sition period intended to smooth the
way to the UK’s new status. EU sources
insist that the core provisions – money,
citizens’ rights and the Irish border
- would have to be agreed as a pre-
condition for opening talks on trade.
But the UK government could also
face fresh demands set by countries hit
hard by a chaotic no deal. Diplomats
expect that France and other coastal
states would seek to make fi sheries a
key condition for unlocking talks on
a future trade deal. “The EU reserves
the right to extend the list ” of phase
one issues , the source said. “The fi rst
contender will be fi shing, as member
states will be facing some very, very
angry fi shing communities.”
Fishing is one area where the EU
stands to lose more than the UK from
a no deal: EU-based fl eets land eight
times as much fi sh from UK waters as
British fi shermen do in EU27 waters.
But the UK would be under intense
pressure from business to strike a trade
deal with the EU, its largest trading
partner. Britain does half its trade with
the EU – 46% of UK exports and 54%
of imports. At the weekend, Johnson
insisted the UK “can easily cope with
a no-deal scenario”.
Sources on both sides of the Brexit
divide fear it could take a long time to
pick up the pieces of an acrimonious
no-deal exit. Once the UK is outside
the EU, any new agreement would
have to be ratifi ed by national parlia-
ments, a process that could take years.
The prime minister has insisted it
is up to the EU27 to avert no deal. “If
we come out without an agreement it
is certainly true that the £39bn is noParliament
Johnson seeks
to create new
peers to boost
his authority
Heather Stewart
Political editorBoris Johnson is preparing to send
half a dozen staunch Tory loyalists
to the House of Lords, in an attempt
to bolster the party’s position in the
upper chamber.
The new crop of peers is unlikely to
be confi rmed until after the 31 October
Brexit deadline but the appointments
will be read as a signal that Johnson
is determined to stamp his mark on
parliament.
Theresa May’s resignation hon-
ours list is expected to be announced
soon , with rewards for several of the
key people who supported her through
her premiership, including her chief
of staff , the former MP Gavin Barwell.
Johnson is believed to have already
drawn up a list of up to six names to
be submitted to the House of Lords
appointments commission, which has
to approve new members.
The Conservatives currently have
238 peers in the House of Lords – but
the government can easily be defeated
if the 178 Labour peers and 95 Liberal
Democrats work together.
The previous government faced
a string of heavy losses over Brexit,
which paved the way for MPs to exact
concessions, including on a meaning-
ful vote. In several cases, Tory peers
including the former Hong Kong
governor Chris Patten sided with the
opposition parties.
Recently, peers passed a motion
tabled by Labour’s leader in the Lords,
Angela Smith , calling on the govern-
ment to establish a cross-party select
committee to examine the conse-
quences of a no-deal Brexit.
The former Labour prime minis-
ter Gordon Brown has suggested MPs
should take up the idea when they
return to Westminster next week,
and set aside a day to debate the con-
sequences of leaving without a deal.
Johnson has been accused of plot-
ting to override parliament since he
arrived at No 10, with his chief adviser,
Dominic Cummings , telling colleagues
they must be ready to use any means
necessary to ensure Brexit happens by
the end of October.
Both the cabinet and Johnson’s
Downing Street team have been
packed with veterans of the successful
Vote Leave campaign, stoking specu-
lation that he expects to be fi ghting a
general election within months.
All Johnson’s ministers had to agree
that they were willing to countenance
a no-deal Brexit if necessary, after May
faced a string of rebellions, including
from within her own cabinet.
In a foreword to a new edition of the
ministerial code published last week,
Johnson wrote that there must be “no
misuse of process or procedure by any
individual Minister that would seek to
stall the collective decisions necessary
to deliver Brexit and secure the wider
changes needed across [the UK] .ӣ39bn
The fi nancial settlement is a British
calculation never confi rmed by the
EU. It was based on leaving in March46%
Proportion of UK exports going to the
EU. It accounts for 54% of UK imports2020
The settlement includes membership
contributions to the end of next yearPlenty more fi sh?
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