Theresa May has accused the European Union of not treating
the UK with respect, in a hastily arranged Downing Street statement a day after
she was humiliated at the Salzburg summit, when EU leaders declared her
Chequers plan would not work. The British prime minister said she stood by
Chequers, adding that throughout the Brexit negotiations she had treated her
counterparts with 'nothing but respect … and the UK expects the same'
Theresa May: I won’t break up my country over Brexit
The British prime minister urged ‘serious engagement’ from
her EU counterparts.
By TOM
MCTAGUE AND ANNABELLE DICKSON 9/21/18,
3:26 PM CET Updated 9/21/18, 9:10 PM CET
LONDON — We’ve reached the angry, shouty stage.
After a tetchy two days in Salzburg, which were supposed to
“de-dramatize” the Brexit talks, London and Brussels instead found themselves
flinging diplomatic rocks at each other Friday as the prospect of a messy,
no-deal divorce sped alarmingly into view.
After receiving a very public dressing down from EU leaders
at the end of the “informal” gathering in the Austrian Alps, a clearly still
furious Theresa May dug out the Downing Street lectern to demand more
“respect,” vowing not to accept a deal that would “break up my country.”
If there is such a thing as a political l’esprit de
l’escalier, this was it.
Returning fire, European Council President Donald Tusk — who
had set off the Brexit avalanche by saying May’s plan “will not work” — said
the whole mess was the prime minister’s fault. “The U.K. stance presented just
before and during the Salzburg meeting was surprisingly tough and in fact
uncompromising,” Tusk said in a statement published on the EU’s website. Tusk
finished on a positive note, insisting he was “convinced that a compromise,
good for all, is still possible.”
After a breathless 24 hours, No. 10 Downing Street will be
quietly relieved. Already facing the prospect of a fractious Conservative Party
conference in a week’s time, May and her team now have an external enemy to
focus Tory minds away from their own differences. If there’s one thing certain
to unite conservative Middle England, it’s a foreigner telling them what to do.
The prime minister’s so-called Chequers plan now also looks a lot less like a
British sell-out.
However, whatever political breathing space the prime
minister has bought herself, the fundamentals in the Brexit negotiations have
not changed and they still look impossible for the U.K. prime minister.
The EU, publicly and privately, shows no sign of being
willing to concede on the core principle standing in the way of a divorce deal:
what to do about the Irish border. May has set up no separate customs
arrangement for Northern Ireland as her final, unbreakable red line. The EU is,
so far, shrugging its shoulders.
Digging in
In her statement Friday afternoon, May called for “serious
engagement” with the U.K.’s proposals, doubling down on her Chequers plan as
the only potential deal that would make good on the referendum result and
preserve the integrity of the United Kingdom.
“Yesterday Donald Tusk said our proposals would undermine
the single market, he didn’t explain how in any detail, or make any counter
proposal — so we are at an impasse,” she said.
May said: “The European Union should be clear, I will not
overturn the result of the referendum, nor will I break up my country. We need
serious engagement on resolving the two big problems in the negotiations and we
stand ready.”
And she demanded respect for the U.K. in the negotiations.
“Throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect. The
U.K. expects the same. A good relationship at the end of this process depends
on it,” she said.
The pound dropped sharply following the statement.
The prime minister said the EU was “still only offering two
options.” A Norway-style agreement where the U.K. stays within the EU single
market and customs union would “make a mockery of the referendum we had two
years ago,” she said. “In plain English this would mean we’d have to abide by
all the EU rules,” she said, while accepting free movement and not having the
ability to strike trade deals.
Option two, a Canada-style free trade, on the other hand,
would mean Northern Ireland being “permanently separated economically” from the
rest of the U.K. because the EU proposes the nation should effectively stay
inside its customs union and parts of the single market. “It is something I
will never agree to,” said May, “If the EU believe I will they are making a
fundamental mistake.”
May, whose government is propped up by an agreement with the
Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party, said the U.K. would set out an
alternative to the EU’s Northern Ireland backstop proposal — which is designed
to avoid a hard border whatever else is agreed between the two sides — that
“preserves the integrity of the UK.”
She emphasized it would include the commitment that no new
regulatory barriers should be created between Northern Ireland and the rest of
the U.K., unless the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly agree. Currently
those institutions are suspended because of a disagreement between unionist and
nationalist parties.
She added that her government would also “do everything in
our power” to prevent a return to a hard border in Northern Ireland if the
talks fail.
The prime minister also pledged that in the event of
no-deal, the rights of three million European Union citizens living in the U.K.
would be protected. “I want to be clear with you that even in the event of
no-deal your rights will be protected. You are our friends, our neighbors, our
colleagues. We want you to stay,” she said.
‘Steely resolve’
In the short term, at least, the prime minister appeared to
have appeased several factions within her own party.
Nigel Dodds, deputy leader of the DUP, said Salzburg
demonstrated the “utter inflexibility” and “bullying tactics” of the EU when
they club together to reject out of hand proposals put forward by the British
side.
He said it demonstrated the EU was not negotiating in “good
faith,” adding that it was time the prime minister demonstrated that she was
going to stand up for the U.K.’s interests, including Northern Ireland. “I
welcome what she has said today in those terms,” he said.
“The issue of Northern Ireland … has been massively abused
and manipulated by Remainers, by the Irish government, by Brussels, to try to
force the United Kingdom into a particular view of Brexit,” he said.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the pro-Brexit European
Research Group of Tory backbenchers, said the Salzburg summit indicated that
the EU was not acting in good faith. He said May was right to remind EU leaders
that no deal is better than a bad deal.
“The prime minister has shown steely resolve at the eleventh
hour and is standing up to the EU bullies. The next step is to say to the EU
£40 billion and free trade or World Trade terms,” he said.
However, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was predictably
critical. “Theresa May’s Brexit negotiating strategy has been a disaster,” he
said. “The Tories have spent more time arguing among themselves than negotiating
with the EU.”
“The political games from both the EU and our Government
need to end because no deal is not an option,” he added.
Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake said that
instead of “pontificating” on television, May should recall parliament to
explain her plan and how there could be a so-called people’s vote and an “exit
from Brexit.”
Chequered history: what EU summit fallout means for Brexit camps
Brexit
Here’s how critics may seek to capitalise on Theresa May’s
humiliation in Salzburg
Jessica Elgot
@jessicaelgot
Fri 21 Sep 2018 17.43 BST Last modified on Fri 21 Sep 2018
18.45 BST
Theresa May came out to defend her Brexit strategy on
Friday, demanding respect from the EU as her allies insisted that her
post-Brexit proposals were still workable even after their rejection by EU
leaders at Thursday’s Salzburg summit. Meanwhile, her critics seek to
capitalise: whether to push the prime minister to ditch her Chequers proposals,
call for a new referendum or demand the UK walks from the talks.
Here is what the summit fallout would mean for the Brexit
camps.
May loyalists
The scenes in Salzburg would have sparked doubt in some.
Loyalists who have been sceptical of the plan but ultimately sided with May,
such as the environment secretary, Michael Gove, or the international trade
secretary, Liam Fox, may start to worry that the humiliation the PM suffered at
the summit would mean she was incapable of delivering any form of Brexit
without significant further concessions to the EU that they would find
impossible to stomach.
One of her closest allies James Brokenshire, the housing
secretary, who served under May at the Home Office, was trusted to go out to
bat for the broken plan on the morning media programmes, saying it was up to
the EU to “engage with what’s on the table” rather than make sweeping
criticisms.
Soft Brexiters
The Salzburg summit would have been in many ways the most
worrying for the soft Brexiters in May’s cabinet, such as the chancellor,
Philip Hammond, and the business secretary, Greg Clark, who had pushed hard for
the common rulebook on goods in the face of tough opposition from cabinet
colleagues.
The EU27 may have calculated that the UK could crumble and
accept an EEA-style arrangement with a customs union that resolves the Irish
border.
The concerns the soft Brexiters would have was that the EU’s
hard-nosed approach would embolden cabinet colleagues like Fox or the home
secretary, Sajid Javid, who would prefer to see a Canada-style free trade deal
solution.
The EU has said that was unacceptable unless it involved
Northern Ireland remaining in the customs union to avoid a hard border.
Worse, soft Brexiters would fear that the put-downs would
also embolden some of their more kamikaze colleagues who would prefer to see no
deal at all.
Rebels and ‘no deal’ Brexiters
May’s humiliation at the Salzburg summit could be the moment
for the hard Brexit Tories. The former Brexit secretary David Davis was to
publish his plan for a free-trade deal before this month’s Tory conference,
which may act as a lightning rod for Chequers sceptics to coalesce around an
alternative demand.
That route has some sympathisers in the cabinet, including
Javid, the Commons leader, Andrea Leadsom, and the international development
secretary, Penny Mordaunt.
The spectacle of May standing alone as EU leaders demolished
her Brexit plan would also embolden that wing of the party, who have argued the
EU has not negotiated in good faith and intended to push Britain into a
position where it should be a “rule taker” in a single market and customs
union.
For now, most prominent Brexiters have argued in favour of
seeking a free trade deal but the calls could grow for May to tear up
negotiations entirely and begin full preparation for a departure with no deal
on the future relationship.
Labour leadership
May’s car crash summit in Salzburg could embolden Jeremy
Corbyn ahead of the Labour conference in Liverpool – if Brexit was something
that the leadership wanted to focus on, which it does not.
Labour has been facing its own internal battle with party
members keen to push the leadership into calling for a new referendum on the
final deal, a policy that many at the top of the party remain deeply sceptical
about.
At worst, they believe endorsing such a move would help May
with her parliamentary woe, because a threat of a second vote would persuade
some rebel Tory Brexiters to side with the prime minister in parliament rather
than risk another poll.
Another worry would be that if a no-deal scenario started to
look like a very real alternative to any plan May could thrash out with the EU,
how would the front bench keep their MPs disciplined to vote against her deal
in parliament – when the alternative could be a cliff edge?
People’s Vote campaigners
The ‘continuity remain’ campaigners who would like to see a
vote on the final Brexit deal would be hoping that May’s inability to strike a
compromise both with the EU leaders and with her own backbenchers makes their
plan for a second referendum the only route for the prime minister out of a
looming crisis.
But over the past few days, May has again ruled out that
option, with conviction, insisting it would incentivise the EU to offer the UK
an unacceptable deal.
The chaos would galvanise their support base and perhaps win
new converts to the cause, but the summit has done little materially to bring a
second referendum closer to reality, when the prime minister and Labour
leadership remain opposed.
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