Theresa May’s Brexit deal branded a ‘sell-out’ as it keeps UK tied to EU and ECJ until 2022 at the cost of £800m a month — on top of £39bn divorce bill
THERESA May’s Brexit deal was branded a “sell-out” yesterday — after it emerged Britain may have to pay billions of pounds more to Brussels.
She outlined the rough terms of a future trade deal in a 26-page political declaration — but also revealed that a post-Brexit transition deal could be extended until December 2022.
That is two years longer than originally suggested and would cost Britain an estimated £800million for every month — on top of the £39billion divorce bill we must already pay to leave the EU.
The agreement also leaves Britain tied to the hated European Court of Justice, which will still have the final say on any dispute over EU rules.
The revelations incensed MPs who were already outraged by the concessions Britain has made. Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said: “The last thing we want is for Britain to be tied beyond 2020.
“The British people want us to get out. This is a sell-out.”
Former Brexit Secretary David Davis said: “This is £39billion for a pig in a poke.
“The EU’s got nailed down everything it wants whilst leaving us on a half promise of what we want.”
And Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called it “26 pages of waffle”.
He said: “The only certainty contained within these pages is that the transition period will have to be extended or we will end up with backstop and no exit.
“It represents the worst of all worlds, no say over the rules that will continue to apply and no certainty to the future.”
He accused the PM of producing a “blindfold Brexit from a government that spent more time negotiating with itself than for the nation”.
In yesterday’s document, the EU agreed the UK can end free movement, try to negotiate deals with the rest of the world and take back control of fisheries.
Downing Street insisted these were hard-won victories.
Irish backstop
DOWNING Street claimed a win yesterday as the EU agreed that technology could be used to prevent the return of a hard border in Ireland — and avoid the toxic backstop.
But the so-called insurance plan is still in place and will take effect if an EU-UK trade deal is not ready when the post-Brexit transition period ends on December 31, 2020.
Under the backstop, the UK has to abide by EU single market and customs rules without having a say on policy or a unilateral way of exiting.
Yesterday’s declaration shows EU willingness for an alternative solution such as smart cameras that can track and monitor goods crossing the Irish border.
Eurosceptic Iain Duncan Smith met with the PM this week to urge her to lobby Brussels to accept a tech option.
But the EU refused to accept that a future EU-UK trade deal will allow Mrs May “frictionless trade” and insisted the UK will be bound by EU rules on everything from state aid to climate change.
And it only accepted that technology would be “considered” as a way of preventing the return of a hard border in Ireland if a future trade deal is not agreed.
The terms will almost certainly be formally agreed by Mrs May and 27 other EU leaders at a crunch summit in Brussels on Sunday. This will trigger the divorce bill of up to £39billion.
In a fierce Commons exchange, the PM resorted to urging MPs to back the deal when it goes before the Commons because the public is bored.
She insisted “Brexit is within our grasp” adding: “The British people want Brexit to be settled.
“They want a good deal that sets us on course for a brighter future.
“And they want us to come together as a country and to move on to focus on the big issues at home, like our NHS.”
She once more ruled out the prospect of a second referendum.
And Downing Street insisted it will never happen “while she is Prime Minister”.
But Brexiteers lined up to slam the agreement — fuelling concerns it will never make it through the Commons in a critical “Meaningful Vote” in three weeks’ time.
More than 100 Tories are thought to be ready to vote down the deal — alongside the DUP, SNP and most Labour MPs.
Cabinet ministers spent much of a conference call with Mrs May yesterday morning debating how to sell the deal to the nation.
UK’s out of pluck and out of pocket
By Priti Patel, Tory MP for Witham, former International Development Secretary
TODAY we have finally seen the true cost of being out-thought and out-manoeuvred by the EU at every stage in the negotiations.
By agreeing to give the EU £39billion of taxpayers’ money for no trade deal in return, we have ensured everything we wanted from the negotiation has been put in an unenforceable, meaningless political declaration.
And it will cost every UK household £1,433.
However, the EU’s happy because everything it wanted has ended up in the Withdrawal Agreement — a legally enforceable international treaty which we won’t be able to back out of.
Worse still, the declaration is essentially the discredited Chequers proposal all over again.
Instead of taking back control, we will be abandoning control over vast swathes of our social and economic policy.
Instead of being bold enough to prepare to walk away from negotiations, we’ve succumbed to the EU’s bullying tactics.
This is a defeatist surrender and I implore ministers to think again.
Last night Chief Whip Julian Smith emailed Tory MPs urging them to “unite” and back the PM. He told backbenchers: “If we reject this deal we go back to square one.
“This would mean damaging uncertainty which will threaten jobs, investment and the economy.”
Home Secretary Sajid Javid insisted the deal “delivers on the referendum” — although he admitted the Government must do a “better job of selling” it.
But Boris Johnson said the terms of the Brexit deal made a “complete nonsense of Brexit”.
And Brexiteers warned they could not support a deal which still included the so-called Irish backstop plan for keeping the border open.
But Mrs May insisted it would only kick in if a new trade deal isn’t in place by January 2021.
The Sun Says
THERESA May did a decent job defending her Brexit deal yesterday.
But it is still just a woolly and even contradictory wishlist that barely binds Brussels to anything.
The cost of these vague promises?
Some 39 thousand million pounds.
This “political declaration” about the future is predicated on Brussels negotiating a trade deal in good faith, a quality they have never shown since the referendum result they are even now desperate to overthrow.
Why would their puerile desire to “punish” Britain abate once we nominally leave next March? Especially when under the terms now agreed they can trap us in the Customs Union for ever?
The PM claims the EU wouldn’t want us there, benefiting from it for free, having ended free movement. But that’s a price Brussels will surely pay to cripple us as a trading rival on their doorstep.
That said, the deal is NOT all bad.
Downing Street rightly trumpets that it ends free movement and our massive membership subscription, protects jobs and secures our fishing rights (for now).
And Mrs May, to her considerable credit, pushed the EU into an extraordinary U-turn over a high-tech solution to police the Irish border. Remember how glibly they once sneered at that idea?
Trouble is, who trusts them not to change heart again if the appalling “Irish backstop” alternative suits them?
The trade deal may take years. Anyone could veto it: Spain over Gibraltar. Or the Belgian Walloons who almost wrecked the EU/Canada deal. We would be stuck.
And while Mrs May’s deal enshrines our right to an independent trade policy, it also says any new partnership with the EU must “build on” a single customs territory. That’s why Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab quit — it scuppers any deals elsewhere.
The one straw we clutch is that Jeremy Corbyn isn’t negotiating. None of his scripted lines, nor his brow furrowed in supposed concentration, can hide that the entire debate sails over his head.
Don’t imagine the chaos couldn’t be worse
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