Britain will withhold £39billion divorce bill if no trade agreement is reached with the EU, vows Dominic Raab
The Brexit Secretary is set to play hardball with the EU over the so-called divorce settlement if trade deal talks fall through
BRITAIN will refuse to cough up its £39billion divorce bill if the EU fails to strike a trade deal, the Brexit Secretary has vowed.
Dominic Raab insisted it would be conditional on Brussels “fulfilling its side of the bargain”.
The pledge overturns a previous announcement that the cash had no strings attached.
Mr Raab said: “Article 50 requires, as we negotiate the withdrawal agreement, that there’s a future framework for our new relationship going forward, so the two are linked.
THE SUN SAYS
THERE cannot be one sensible person who believes we should pay a penny of our £39billion “divorce fee” from the EU before it has signed off a bumper trade deal.
We salute new Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab for ruling it out. We will hold the Government to it. It will not survive if it meekly hands that fortune to Brussels with nothing in return.
We also applaud the energy Mr Raab is injecting into our plans to “thrive” even with no deal next March. That now seems the likeliest result after the latest rebuff. But it is disgraceful this planning was not done two years ago.
Compare Mr Raab’s positivity with the tiresome Remoaning of John Major, now calling for the second referendum he used to rule out as “not credible” until Remain lost. Or the same demand and the same Eyeore-ish doom-mongering from Remain zealot Dominic Grieve, now predicting “catastrophe”.
Faith in our democracy is already at dangerously low levels. But these sore losers would dismantle it entirely if that’s what it took to get their way.
Will they ever give it a rest?
“You can’t have one side fulfilling its side of the bargain and the other side not, or going slow, or failing to commit on its side.
“So I think we do need to make sure that there’s some conditionality between the two.”
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