Chief negotiator Michel Barnier rejects Theresa May’s soft Brexit border tax plan
The stubborn Eurocrat has warned that Brussels 'cannot and will not' allow a non-member to monitor its borders
BRAZEN Michel Barnier tonight rejected Theresa May’s key Chequers proposal for Britain to collect EU import taxes.
The EU’s chief negotiator stubbornly warned that Brussels “cannot and will not” allow a non-member to monitor its borders.
In a testy Brussels press conference with Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, the Frenchman ruled out the PM’s centrepiece “Facilitated Customs Arrangement” border plan.
Mr Barnier, launching the strongest attack yet on the UK’s controversial soft Brexit offer, openly mocked her promise to “control our money, law and borders”.
Mr Raab teased that the EU had bent its rules in the past and had “considered innovative approaches”.
But Mr Barnier declared that the customs rules were sacred, adding: “We are not going to negotiate on that.”
Labour MP and devout Remainer Ben Bradshaw tonight gloated that Mrs May’s Chequers deal proposal was “dead”.
But it emerged that German leader Angela Merkel is ready to hand the PM a lifeline by letting her dodge the hardline EU Commission and put her plan directly to fellow leaders at a September summit.
However, France hit back to say the Commission spoke for all member states.
- CARS and trucks will tail back for hundreds of miles in northern France on Brexit Day, March 29, if talks fail, French foreign minister Nathalie Loiseau said in a grim No Deal warning.