Afternoon summary
- Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has expressed hope that the Brexit talks will be able to progress to phase two - covering a future UK-EU trade deal - in December. (See 4.29pm.) With original hopes that the move to phase two would be agreed at today’s summit now quashed, the British government is now very anxious to move the talks on by the end of the year - not least because EU leaders will not agree a transition while the talks are stuck in phase one. Merkel’s words gave Theresa May some cause for optimism as she arrived for the start of the two-day summit. Other EU leaders also struck a relatively upbeat note about the possibility of a breakthrough in December (see 3.34pm, 3.54pm, 3.57pm and 4.46pm), but there were also calls for May to offer more clarity about what the UK is willing to pay the EU as it leaves (see 3.17pm and 4.06pm.)
- Lloyd Blankfein, the head of Goldman Sachs, has tweeted about spending more time in Frankfurt, where the US investment bank is planning to move UK jobs, in a comment suggesting Brexit will be bad for the City. Jeremy Corbyn has said this highlights the uncertainty the government’s Brexit strategy has created. Commenting on the tweet, Corbyn said:
It’s not a good thing if companies of any sort - manufacturing, services or anybody else - are thinking of leaving. This really highlights the uncertainty surrounding the government’s conduct of these negotiations.
- Damian Green, the first secretary of state, has said the rising level of political abuse is fuelling an “atmosphere of increasing hatred” which threatens to poison democratic politics in Britain. In a speech to the press gallery he said:
If mainstream politicians and journalists start to behave like Twitter trolls and conspiracy theorists then democracy is in danger.
I do think we need to respect each other motives and treat each other’s views with courtesy. If we don’t we risk feeding an atmosphere of increasing hatred which at the most horrible extremes led to an event like the killing of Jo Cox ...
We have in the past few years witnessed a sad and completely ridiculous rise in routine comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis. It is symptomatic not just of a decline, but of a rapidly increasing viciousness in our discourse which is totally out of kilter with what I see day after day in the House of Commons.
Even when we are in the chamber or on the media giving it what-for, we need to remember that we are all democratic politicians.
What is pernicious is the attempt to portray your political opponents as somehow not quite human. It is the trick of extremists on both sides throughout the ages and we shouldn’t allow it to take hold in this country.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Updated
Emmanuel Macron has tweeted some very similar footage.
À Bruxelles pour relancer l’Europe sur trois piliers : unité, souveraineté et démocratie. #EUCO pic.twitter.com/cxngpbWq2g
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) October 19, 2017
Here is the video of Angela Merkel, Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron having a conflab on the way in. Sadly, you can’t hear what they are saying.
What were Macron, Merkel and May discussing in hushed voices during the #EUCO? Watch the full video here: https://t.co/PJiHXIpkpE pic.twitter.com/mjTGaxRDqk
— euronews (@euronews) October 19, 2017
In his speech in Brussels today to European socialists Jeremy Corbyn used the term “national egotism”. He said:
Beyond Europe’s borders we have seen war and climate change drive the mass displacement of people and forced migration; a refugee crisis on a scale not seen since the Second World War, tearing apart communities and families.
That in turn is being exploited by some of the ugliest elements in our politics. People who are determined to promote fear and division within our societies.
All of this against a backdrop where our world is slipping back towards the threat of global conflict; spurred on by national egotism and neo-imperial ambition.
And where human and democratic rights - including freedom of speech - are increasingly coming under pressure on the fringes, and even within the borders of the European Union.
These are some of the challenges that face us – and the people we represent.
MLex’s Matthew Holehouse says that shows Corbyn is being well briefed.
Corbyn denounces "national egotism" in speech to S&D. Term with lots of meaning in Brussels and little in UK. He's being well-briefed.
— Matthew Holehouse (@mattholehouse) October 19, 2017
Updated
The Swedish government has commissioned research to prepare it for when the Brexit talks move on to the topic of trade, the BBC’s Adam Fleming reports.
ENG trans: Swedish govt asks trade agency @Kommerskoll to think about Phase 2 of #Brexit talks (h/t @mattholehouse) https://t.co/6UXo3umBWf pic.twitter.com/XmZDm6lNt3
— Adam Fleming (@adamfleming) October 19, 2017
Earlier this week Bloomberg published a story based on a draft paper from the German foreign ministry showing that the German government is also starting to plan for a UK-EU free trade deal.
Updated
Tusk says EU and UK will have to work 'really hard' to achieve Brexit talks breakthrough in December
Donald Tusk, president of the European council, told reporters that he did not expect a breakthrough on Brexit at this summit and that they would have to work “really hard” to get to the position where they could move talks on to phase two in December. He said:
I don’t expect any kind of breakthrough ...
We have to work really hard between October and December to finalise this so-called first phase.
He was also asked if he agreed with the European parliament president Antonio Tajani about the €20bn being offered by Theresa May to the EU being “peanuts”. Tusk replied:
I have never seen 20 billion peanuts in my life.
This is from the Lithuanian president, Dalia Grybauskaitė. She is referring to the venue for the summit having to be switched because of toxic kitchen fumes.
Lessons from #EUCO kitchen: fuming over #Brexit must not become toxic.
— Dalia Grybauskaitė (@Grybauskaite_LT) October 19, 2017
Joseph Muscat, the Maltese prime minister, has told Sky News that the EU27 want to be “encouraging” towards the UK about the prospect of the Brexit talks progressing to trade issues in December. These are from Sky’s Faisal Islam.
NEW: EU Council Member, Malta PM Muscat tells @skynews: "pretty clear there will not be an agreement on the wording of sufficient progress"
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) October 19, 2017
Muscat: "wording agreed and spirit of answer we want to make that progress. Wording will be encouraging.. [but] cannot move to next stage"
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) October 19, 2017
I ask Malta PM - what about transition talks?
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) October 19, 2017
"This is not horse trading - changing rules of game mid way, rules clear from start"
Malta PM Muscat: "most of us will be in position to argue we need to show we're committed to move ahead"
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) October 19, 2017
In December? "In next few months.."
So EU Council member Muscat suggests might not be a reference to December, says EU27 want to be "encouraging" but not sufficient progress
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) October 19, 2017
Merkel raises hopes of UK-EU trade talks being able to start in December
Here is the full quote from Angela Merkel expressing hope that the Brexit talks can progress to the trade negotiation phase in December. She said:
Tomorrow we will also discuss the question of Great Britain’s exit. There has been progress. Michel Barnier will tell us more about that. From where we are now, it [progress] is not sufficient enough to enter the second phase, but it is encouraging to move on with the work so that we can reach the second phase in December ...
I want to keep on doing these negotiations in good spirit and at the same time taking into account and respecting the wish of the British people to leave the EU but also maintaining a good relationship between Great Britain and the EU.
I’ve taken the quote from Politico Europe.
May must be 'more realistic', says Lithuanian president
This is from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. @Grybauskaite_LT is the Lithuanian president, Dalia Grybauskaitė.
'Mrs May needs to be persuade herself to be more realistic' - is she? 'Not yet; - says @Grybauskaite_LT ouch!
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) October 19, 2017
Angela Merkel has reaffirmed that Brexit negotiations could move onto trade by the end of the year, in remarks that could bolster the position of Theresa May.
December is the crunch deadline when EU leaders will judge whether the UK has made “sufficient progress” on the divorce issues that will allow Brexit talks to progress to trade. The EU’s 27 leaders are expected to announce on Friday they will launch internal discussions on the future relationship with the UK, without the participation of the British government.
Arriving at the summit, the German chancellor said there were “encouraging” signs that talks on trade could begin after the next EU summit in December, putting her seal of approval on the established EU position.
The upbeat tone was echoed by Luxembourg’s prime minister Xavier Bettel. He said:
We were friends, we are friends and we still will be friends. I am sure we will find an agreement.
He noted the change in tone between May’s speeches, including her latest outreach to EU citizens. “Times change and even Theresa May’s Facebook post went in the right direction.”
French president Emmanuel Macron chose to emphasise the unity of the EU27, as he arrived at the summit. He said EU’s unity was “very strong on Brexit”, adding that “we are all united behind one same negotiator Michel Barnier”.
Shortly before the summit began, footage showed the British prime minister in earnest conversation with Merkel and Macron.
The prime minister has repeatedly attempted to go over the heads of the EU’s Brexit negotiators, by appealing to European leaders to jump start the talks. Earlier this week, Downing Street tacitly admitted this gambit had failed when it signed up to a joint Brussels statement that “both sides agreed that [Brexit] would be discussed in the “framework agreed between the EU27 and the United Kingdom”.
Finland’s prime minister Juha Sipilӓ said he hoped to see progress onto trade in December, once the three divorce issues (EU citizens’ rights, money and Ireland) had been resolved. He said:
Of course we are a little bit frustrated about the progress but hopefully we can be in that position [to discuss trade] in December.
Asked whether the EU should plan for a no-deal Brexit, he said: “Not yet”.
Updated
Like Angela Merkel (see 2.56pm), the Finnish prime minister Juha Sipila also expressed the hope that the Brexit talks would be able to move on to phase two, the future trade negotiation, in December. He said:
I hope we can decide the next phase in December’s meeting, but today we are not in that position.
Phil Hogan, the Irish European commissioner, said this week that the UK was “now so close to the cliff edge of a hard Brexit that we can see the drop almost in front of us.”
Arriving at the EU summit, Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, said he did not agree. “I think we have a way to go yet,” he said.
Brexit does not happen until April 2019. We are quite far back from the cliff edge at this stage. But it’s incumbent on the EU prime ministers and presidents to ensure that we don’t sleepwalk towards that cliff and that substantially more progress is made in the next couple of months. We are well away from the cliff.
But Varadkar also said that althought progress had been made on the Irish border, it was “just not enough”.
Language isn’t enough. If the UK is leaving the European Union it is on them to put forward detailed proposals to ensure that things remain much the same. That is at the core of the conflict with the position that the UK is taking.
Varadkar also said he was optimistic of more common ground in the Brexit talks by next month, the Press Association reports.
Boris Johnson says UK will do 'very well' if it has to leave EU with no deal
Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, has said the UK will do “very well”, even if it has to leave the EU with no trade deal. Speaking to reporters after a meeting in London with Mexican foreign minister Luis Videgaray Caso, he said:
I think that we will get a deal and it will be a great deal and a great Brexit but with any negotiation you’ve got to be prepared to walk away.
And we are going to be prepared to do that and, as Luis has said, I think we’ll do fine but we’ll also be able to develop our relations with Mexico and that’s very exciting as well.
Asked if Britain would be fine if no deal is reached with the EU, he replied:
We have to prepare for every eventuality, and as our esteemed guest Luis Videgaray has said, we will come through it very well whatever happens.
Dutch PM says UK must offer more clarity about Brexit bill
The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, told reporters at the EU summit it should be a priority for Britain to come up with a clear proposal on the bill they will have to pay when they leave the European Union in 2019, Reuters reports. The Reuters report goes on:
Rutte said it was the key to progressing, as Britain desperately wants, to the next phase of Brexit talks about the future trade and security relationship.
When he had a phone call with his counterpart Theresa May last week Rutte said he’d told her: “’Listen, we need more clarity specifically about the bill.’”
Only if there is clarity on the bill is there “a chance for the statements today and tomorrow to be leaning more towards the British,” Rutte said as he walked into the summit.
Rutte said he would prefer to be offered a definite sum, with estimates varying from €20bn to three times as much. “I’d prefer a sum, so we can negotiate about it. But if this is asking too much, then at least have a proposal how to get to a sum. But even that, she hasn’t been able to produce,” he said.
Merkel raises hopes of UK-EU trade talks being able to start in December
And Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said there were there were “encouraging” signs that the Brexit talks could move on to the subject of the future trade relationship as early as December. According to the Press Association, as Merkel arrived at the summit she said enough progress had been made to encourage her to think it would be possible to “take the work forward and then reach the start of the second phase in December”.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said the EU27 were united in their stance on Brexit as he arrived at the EU summit. He said:
This European council will be marked by a message of unity. Unity in the Brexit discussions because we are all united on how things stand, the interests we have and our ambitions, behind one negotiator.
These are from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.
May called for 'urgency' arriving in BXL, but we've just spoken to 10 different EU leaders who all say it's for UK to act
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) October 19, 2017
Rutte, Dutch PM told us UK has to explain 'honour commitments' means as in extra cash, but strongly denied EU simply holding out for £££££££
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) October 19, 2017
This is from Lloyd Blankfein, the global head of Goldman Sachs. He is saying Brexit is going to be bad for the city ...
Just left Frankfurt. Great meetings, great weather, really enjoyed it. Good, because I'll be spending a lot more time there. #Brexit
— Lloyd Blankfein (@lloydblankfein) October 19, 2017
Lunchtime summary
- Theresa May has arrived at the EU summit in Brussels saying she plans to set out “ambitious plans for the weeks ahead” in the Brexit process. (See 1.24pm and 1.32pm.)
- Sir John Sawers, the former head of MI6, has told peers that Britain may have to invest more after Brexit in defence and diplomacy to maintain its global influence. Otherwise British influence will diminish, he said. (See 1.07pm.)
- David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has distanced himself from a claim he made in September about the prospect of the UK paying €50bn to leave the EU being “nonsense”. He has also hinted that the government will offer a new concession to the EU regarding the rights of EU nationals living in the UK, specifically related to family reunion rules. (See 11.14am.)
- Ministers have confirmed in the Lords that an investigation is under way into claims that UK banks could be unwittingly linked to a corruption scandal in South Africa. Labour former cabinet minister Lord Hain has raised concerns with the chancellor that banks including HSBC and Standard Chartered could have acted as “conduits” for laundered money. As the Press Association reports, Treasury spokesman Lord Bates confirmed at question time in the Lords that Hammond had taken immediate action in referring it to the “relevant authorities” so that “justice is done and seen to be done”.
- LBC has announced that MPs Jacob Rees-Mogg and Chuka Umunna will guest present their morning phone in next week, from 10am to 1pm, on Monday and Tuesday respectively. They are standing in for James O’Brien, who is on holiday.
Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, has told Emma Barnett on Radio 5 Live that the EU does not want to do a trade deal with the UK, but that the UK does not realise it yet. He said:
Brussels does not want a mutually advantageous deal and London has not realised it ...
It is true that Britain crashing out on WTO terms is going to be damaging for many German exporters, Italian winemakers and so on, so it will be mutually disadvantageous. But the fallacy lies in the presumption that those who are conducting the negotiations from Brussels and their political masters in Berlin and Paris, are interested in an economic outcome. They’re not. They’re far more interested in making an example of Britain so that others around the European Union get a lesson that anyone who opposes their authority gets crushed. Even if this comes at the expense of German automobile manufacturers or Italian winemakers.
Updated
Theresa May has called for “urgency” in reaching an agreement on citizens’ rights, as she arrived at an EU summit in Brussels.
The prime minister was one of the first leaders to arrive at the summit, where she said the UK wanted to play a full role in dealing with shared challenges on counter-terrorism, defence and migration.
This council isn’t just about our exit negotiations, it’s also about various other really important issues: defence, security, counter-terrorism, migration and I am going to be showing how the UK can continue playing a full role.
The summit is not officially about Brexit at all. The formal agenda is dedicated to a host of foreign policy issues: migration, Turkey, the Iran nuclear deal, North Korea. French president Emmanuel Macron has added EU trade policy to the agenda, in a bid to protect French farmers from any future trade deal with South American countries.
The British prime minister asked to take the floor to make a point on Brexit, which she is expected to do at the end of dinner. Diplomats said they did not expect EU leaders to give detailed responses to May’s intervention.
“I am not surprised [that she wants to speak] because she has no other platform to speak her mind to other EU leaders,” said a senior EU diplomat, who added: “I doubt anybody would want to say anything substantial as a kind of comment or reaction to what she will say.” Another said they were not expecting anything spectacular from the prime minister. “We are not expecting a coup de théâtre.”
In her opening remarks May said:
This council is about taking stock, it’s also about looking ahead to how we can tackle the challenges that we all share across Europe. That means of course continued cooperation, cooperation that must be at the heart of the strong partnership we want to build together.
Asked about Brexit, citizens’ rights was the only issue May referred to directly, with no specific mention of the other ‘divorce’ issues, the disputed question on money or the status of northern Ireland. She referred back to her speech in Florence, which addressed these issues.
I set out a few weeks ago in Florence a very bold and ambitious agenda and vision for our future partnership between the eu and the UK at the heart of that remains co-operation on the key issues and dealing with the shared challenges that we face.
Updated
May says she will set out 'ambitious plans for the weeks ahead' at EU summit
Theresa May has arrived at the EU summit and as she went in she said it was about “taking stock” and about setting out “ambitious” plans for the weeks ahead.
We’ll be looking at the concrete progress that has been made in our exit negotiations, and I’ll be setting out ambitious plans for the weeks ahead. I particularly, for example, want to see an urgency in reaching an agreement on citizens’ rights.
But May also stressed that the summit was not just about Brexit. It would cover other issues, and she would show how the UK will continue to play a full role, she said.
Asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg if she was willing to compromise on her Brexit offer to the EU, May sidestepped the question, and just said spoke about the “ambitious vision” she had already set out in her Florence speech.
UK may have to spend more after Brexit to retain global influence, says former MI6 chief
Sir John Sawers, the former MI6 chief, has told peers that spending on the military, intelligence and diplomacy may have to increase in order to maintain the UK’s influence on the world stage after Brexit.
Giving evidence to the Lords EU committee, he said:
After Brexit it will be vital that we sustain, in many ways enhance, our investments in diplomacy, defence, intelligence - very high investments are made already - if we want to have an influence in the world of the sort we have had over the last 30 or 40 years.
Sawers, who now chairs the consultancy firm Macro Advisory Partners, said the UK could face being forced to rebuild after Brexit in the way it had following the downturn in the 1970s.
My biggest concern is the economic impact that Brexit is going to have. Everything I hear from my friends in the City and the investment world suggests that the economic impact of Brexit is going to be quite significant ...
In the next five years or so, if I’m right that the economy is going to take a hit, then our influence will diminish in that period ...
There is a range of outcomes here. The default outcome is that the UK is poorer and weaker as a result of Brexit. We would have to take specific actions through the negotiations and over the years following Brexit in order to recover that position and demonstrate a new dynamism.
Sawers compared the situation to the 1970s after which “we managed to turn that round through the ‘80s, ‘90s and 2000s - it is possible to do that but it will be a major challenge, a national challenge”.
At one point Sawers also suggested Brexit might not happen. “Brexit - assuming it goes ahead - will have an impact,” he said.
As the Sun reports, that has not gone down well with the pro-Brexit Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Britain’s former top spook Sir John Sawers slammed after hinting Brexit may never happen: https://t.co/sQZqtY4Yez
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) October 19, 2017
Corbyn says some on left 'too willing to defend status quo'
Jeremy Corbyn, in Brussels to meet the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has also been speaking at a conference on the future of socialism, organised by the Italian leader of the socialist bloc in the European parliament, Gianni Pitella. Opening his address, he said:
Since the financial crash we have seen years of austerity all across Europe. That was a political choice shaped by ideology that was crippled many parts of out economies. Encouraged the dismantling of our public services and drive down wages and living standards ...
It is wrong, unnecessary, it is immoral and it is unacceptable to us as socialists.
Corbyn also said that some on the left had been “too willing to defend the status quo and the established order”. He said:
Our broken system has provided fertile ground for nationalistic and xenophobic politics ... Unless we offer a clear and radical alternative and credible solutions to the problems people face, unless we offer a chance to change the broken system, unless we offer hope of a more equitable and prosperous future, we are clearing the path for the the far right to make inroads to our communities.
The neo-liberal economic model is broken. It doesn’t work for most people. Inequality and low taxes for the riches are hurting our people and the economy as even the IMF acknowledges.
Our thinking must become the new consensus.
Jeremy Corbyn has said said that failing to reach a trade agreement with the EU would be “catastrophic” for British jobs. Speaking in Brussels in an interview with Sky News, he said:
The prime minister seems to have managed to upset just about everybody and have a warring cabinet around her.
It is up to her to get the negotiations back on track. We cannot countenance the idea that we just rush headlong into no deal with Europe. No deal with Europe would be very dangerous for employment and jobs in Britain.
The idea of no deal would mean that World Trade Organisation rules would be implemented straight away in March 2019.
It would be catastrophic for manufacturing industry jobs and we would have real problems all through the economy. I don’t want to see that. I want to see an agreement being reached.
We have to realise the seriousness of the situation and the chaos in which our government is operating at the present time. It is a chaos of their own making.
Updated
The prime minister hosted Bill Clinton for a private meeting at Downing Street, where they primarily discussed Northern Ireland, as well as HIV and Aids.
The pair spoke for 45 minutes, but Downing Street said it would not give more details, saying the contents of the discussion were private. Earlier this week, the former US president met DUP leader Arlene Foster and Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill outside Belfast.
Leadsom says ministers taking their time over EU withdrawal bill out of 'respect' to Commons
In response to Valerie Vaz, Andrea Leadsom also defended the government’s decision to delay the EU withdrawal bill’s committee stage. There were 300 amendments and 54 new clauses that have been tabled to consider, she said. She said it should be “reassuring” to MPs that the government was looking at them carefully before bringing the legislation back to the Commons.
It should be reassuring to the House to know that government is looking very carefully at those amendments and new clauses, to ensure when it does come back to this chamber for its response and for the debate in this chamber - where we have eight days of debate with eight protected hours on each day - that the responses will be well thought through.
But I’d like to point out to members across the House who may not be aware of this is there’s nothing odd at all about a pause between second reading and committee of the whole House ..
It is with our clear intent, our stated intent to show respect to this House by coming back to it with clear, considered responses to all of those proposals made by honourable members across the House.
She also said there was nothing odd about having a lengthy gap between second reading and committee stage for a bill of this kind. She said that there was a six-week gap between second reading and committee stage for the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, and a 10-week gap for the Human Rights Act.
Leadsom did not address the point that the EU withdrawal bill is different, because ministers are under pressure get it through parliament fairly quickly to provide businesses with some certainty ahead of Brexit.
And, while her claim that ministers are looking at the amendments to the bill “very carefully”, is undoubtedly true, it is not principally a matter of showing “respect” to the Commons. Ministers are taking their time because they are worried about being defeated on key issues.
Leadsom confirms that ministers won't be bound by Commons vote to pause universal credit rollout
Last month, after the government abstained in two opposition day debates, government sources said this tactic would become the norm for the rest of the parliament. Motions passed after opposition day debates are not binding anyway and, without a majority, the Tory whips cannot be confident of winning. So they have decided they would rather not take part than run the risk of losing these votes narrowly.
The following day at business questions, when a Labour MP suggested that boycotting opposition debates was an abuse of process, Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, said MPs should not believe everything they read on Twitter. She implied that the news reports about what the government was going to do were wrong.
It is now clear that Leadsom’s quasi-denial was misleading. Last night, when the government abstained on the universal credit vote, the Tories effectively confirmed that staying away was their strategy for dealing with opposition day debates. Their tactics generated a big row. (Read the points of order here, at the bottom of the page.)
Valerie Vaz, the shadow leader of the Commons, has just challenged Leadsom over this in the Commons. Leadsom responded by claiming that the government was not going to ignore last night’s vote. She said:
The government is listening, and has been listening ... I do want to assure colleagues that this House is absolutely being listened to.
Leadsom said ministers were responding to concerns raised by MPs about universal credit.
But last night’s motion, passed by a majority of 299, said the universal credit rollout should be paused. Ministers are not going to accept this, and Leadsom told MPs just now that the government is not bound by motions passed after opposition day debates.
Leadsom confirms EU withdrawal bill still being delayed
Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, has just announced the business for next week in the Commons. As expected, the EU withdrawal bill didn’t feature. The government still has not announced when it will return to the Commons to start its committee stage.
David Davis backs away from claim prospect of paying €50bn to EU is 'nonsense'
David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has given an interesting interview to various European newspapers. They included Die Welt, who conveniently have posted a transcript in English. Here are the key points.
- Davis backed away from a claim he made in September about the prospect of Britain paying €50bn to the EU being “nonsense”. When asked if that was still his view, he said:
Look, this is a negotiation and we want to resolve this in a way which meets our international obligations. I used that phrase because we don’t think that the legal argument stands up so we do it a different way. But it’s a negotiation and we’re going through the process at the moment of assessing, do the technical work on the commitments. We’ll then make a political judgement on what we think is realistic and sensible. But that’s a judgement that should be informed by everything, informed by the whole deal, not informed by a figure picked out of the air.
Davis used the phrase “nonsense” on the Andrew Marr Show on 3 September when asked about a story in the Sunday Times that day (paywall) saying:
Theresa May is set to approve a politically explosive Brexit bill of up to £50bn after the Conservative party conference in October in an effort to kickstart trade talks with the European Union.
Under plans being drawn up in Whitehall, Britain would pay between £7bn and £17bn a year to Brussels for three years after Brexit before ending sizeable direct payments into EU coffers in time for the 2022 general election.
Davis told Marr: “It’s nonsense. The story is completely wrong.”
Speaking to Die Welt, Davis seemed to be saying that the UK still does not think it legally owes the EU €50bn, but that it might make a payment going beyond its legal minimum obligation. He has already said that the UK will meet its “moral” obligations to the EU as well as its legal ones. He has also said the final decision over what to pay will be a political one, and not just a strict legal one.
Peter Foster, the Telegraph’s Europe editor, reads Davis’s comment to Die Welt as an admission that the deadlock over money is in London, not Brussels.
David Davis in Die Welt reveals UK still can't make "political judgment" on acceptable #Brexit bill. The deadlock is really in London. pic.twitter.com/qrXhyQT8WV
— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) October 19, 2017
UPDATE: A source close to Davis has been in touch to say that, when Davis told Marr the Sunday Times story was “nonsense”, he was referring to the claim that May had agreed a figure for the Brexit bill. Davis was not commenting on the figure in the story, the source claims. The source says it is therefore wrong to infer that Davis is backing away from saying that it is “nonsense” to say the Brexit bill will end up at €50bn.
But anyone watching the Marr show, or reading the Marr transcript, will have got the impression that Davis was dismissing the €50bn figure, and not just an aspect of the story. And Davis himself told Die Welt that he used the phrase “nonsense” because he did not accept the legal argument that the UK owed €50bn.
- Davis hinted that the UK may offer a new concession to the EU on the rights of EU nationals. He implied this could involve EU nationals continuing to have certain rights in relation to third-country spouses that UK citizens do not have for a period after Brexit. He said:
Let me deal with family rights, which is most difficult first. The issue is that in order to give perpetuity on family rights it would give to three million people in the UK rights that British citizens themselves don’t have. I am trying to think of a way of maybe a short-term way of sorting this, a certain window whatever.
Davis was referring to the way the current system means that Britons who want to bring a non-European spouse to the UK face tougher restrictions (a minimum income rule) than EU nationals living in the UK. The EU argues that closing this loophole will amount to a reduction in the rights of EU nationals. Asked whether this “window” might last five or 10 years, Davis said he was thinking of something “a bit shorter than that”.
- He claimed he was not accusing the EU of delaying the talks. Asked if he thought EU leaders were holding things up so that businesses relocated to the continent, he replied:
I’m not sure I’d take the view there’s a deliberate slowing of the process. I wouldn’t subscribe to that.
This is not quite what he told MPs on Tuesday, when he accused the EU of holding up the talks in the hope of trying to get the UK to pay more.
- He rejected claims that the government was divided over Brexit. Theresa May’s Florence speech was agreed “unanimously” by cabinet, he said, and he said Brexit involved “the most detailed set of policies I have had to deal with as a minister”. But there still arguments, he accepted.
On the substantive issues, there is unanimity. Of course, there is debate. This is a live democracy, and this is a debate about what is the best way to do things, and I do debate with myself sometimes what the best thing is.
- He said the prospect of the UK leaving the EU without a deal was not a probability, but a “very distant possibility”.
- He said Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, wants to loosen his negotiating mandate. Ministers have said as much before (see, for example, Philip Hammond here), but Davis suggested he has been told this by Barnier himself. He said:
What we know from discussions with Michel Barnier is that he is looking for a bit more leeway in his mandate. He has had a pretty tight mandate so far. We would also like him to be able to talk about the transition period, or implementation period as we call it.
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Theresa May has tweeted a link to her open letter to EU nationals living in the UK.
"Putting people first". My open letter to EU citizens living in the UK #Brexit https://t.co/Lz3ayAKtOw
— Theresa May (@theresa_may) October 19, 2017
Owen Paterson, the Conservative former environment secretary and one of the signatories of the Leave Means Leave ‘Let’s default to WTO’ open letter (see 9.18am), was on the Today programme talking about it. He said that the UK should not be “terrified” of leaving the European Union without a deal and that trading on WTO (World Trade Organisation) terms would be acceptable.
He said it was “inevitable at the moment, it is an ineluctable certainty we are going to end up with WTO at the end of this anyway” so it was better to “state that now” and give business time to prepare.
He also rejected concerns that the lack of a trade deal could lead to queues at ports, claiming that only 2% of shipments were checked by customs, with nearly all trade done electronically.
Responding to his interview on Twitter, the Tory MP Sir Nicholas Soames, a pro-European, accused Paterson of being “defeatist” and said leaving the EU without a trade deal would be “absurd”.
Typically defeatist talk from @OwenPaterson on @BBCr4 today absurd to walk away without deal #sticktoitnegotiationsarenteasy
— Nicholas Soames (@NSoames) October 19, 2017
A German parliamentarian close to the chancellor, Angela Merkel, has confirmed that the European Union wants the UK to agree to pay up to €100bn (£89.4bn) to settle the Brexit divorce bill.
Michael Fuchs, vice chair of the of Merkel’s CDU/CSU group in the German parliament, said the €20bn (£17.9bn) so far offered by the UK was inadequate. Asked by ITV’s Good Morning Britain how much the EU was demanding, Fuchs said:
I cannot give you the final figure, but there is a figure of between €100bn and maybe €60bn [£53.7bn]. Something in between these two numbers should be the right point. This is what the negotiations have to do at moment. I hope David Davis is coming up with decent proposals, €20bn is definitely not enough.
Fuchs also confirmed that money was the major sticking point in the stalled negotiations. He said:
There is an offer of €20bn which is obviously not enough. You can just calculate all the pensions and it’s very obvious that the Europeans don’t want to pay the pensions for the Brits which are living in Brussels. So we have to find a solution on that topic first and then we go on with other topics.
But Fuchs described May’s letter to EU citizens living in the UK as a “positive” sign that she was considering the interest of Europeans in the UK.
Asked to respond to Fuchs comments about money, Brandon Lewis, the immigration minister, said:
We are in negotiations. We will honour our commitments - we have got a moral duty to do that but [we need] to work through exactly what it is to make sure what we are paying for is right for Great Britain, as much as it is right for the European partners.
Photograph: Clemens Bilan/EPA
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UK should give up hope of Brexit trade deal with EU, Tory grandees tell May
EU leaders are meeting in Brussels today for one of their regular summit. These events take place around half a dozen times a year, and often they are routine, but this one was supposed to authorise a Brexit talks breakthrough and, as a result, is attracting considerable scrutiny.
As well all know, we won’t get the breakthrough, because EU leaders will not decide that “sufficient progress” has been made in phase one of the talks (EU citizens’ rights, money and Ireland) to justify moving on to phase two (trade and the transition). But there is considerable interest anyway in what EU leaders say about the prospect a switch to phase two being agreed at the next summit in December.
I’ll be covering the opening of the summit, although the key developments are likely to come out out of my time - at the dinner tonight, where Theresa May will make the case for accelerating the talks, and tomorrow, when the EU27 deliver their assessment.
As the Guardian reports today, EU leaders feel the need to treat May with some caution because they don’t want to do anything that will leave her even weaker domestically, and hence unable to honour any Brexit commitments she made. And we saw a good example of the pressure she is facing at home overnight when the Leave Means Leave campaign issued an open letter signed by, among others, four former Tory cabinet ministers (Lord Lawson, Peter Lilley, John Redwood and Owen Paterson) saying May should prepare now to leave the EU with no trade deal because the EU is negotiating in bad faith. Here is an excerpt.
It has become increasingly clear that the European commission is deliberately deferring discussions on the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU27 post-Brexit. This is causing a highly damaging level of uncertainty for businesses which need time to make preparations for March 2019.
The EU is taking this approach because they do not believe that the UK would be prepared to go to WTO rules for our trading relationship with them. If at the European council this week, the EU continues to refuse to discuss the future framework for a trade relationship, we should formally declare that we are assuming that we will be subject to WTO rules from 30th March 2019. This would provide businesses with absolute certainty about the future and enable immediate steps to be taken to implement our independent trade policy.
If, early next year, the EU then decides to come back to discuss free trade, this will be a bonus - but it is not and should not be treated as essential.
The Telegraph is splashing on the story.
Tomorrow's Daily Telegraph front page: May urged to walk out if EU won't talk trade #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/eGUCoCLLnp
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) October 18, 2017
In other EU developments:
- Michael Fuchs, vice chair of Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU group in the German parliament, has told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that the UK’s offer to pay the EU around €20bn when it leaves is inadequate and that it should pay between €100bn and maybe €60bn. I’ll post more on this soon.
Here is the agenda for the day. All times are UK times.
9.30am: Theresa May meets the former US president Bill Clinton in Downing Street to discuss Northern Ireland.
9.40am: Jeremy Corbyn is due to arrive in Brussels for his own Brexit talks. He is meeting Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Antonio Tajani, president of the European parliament, as well as the Italian, Swedish and Portuguese prime ministers.
10.30am: Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, takes business questions in the Commons. She will be asked about when the EU withdrawal bill will return to the Commons.
11am: Sir John Sawers, the former head of MI6, gives evidence to the Lords EU committee about Brexit.
11.30am: Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European commission, and Donald Tusk, president of the European council, hold a press conference ahead of the summit.
1pm: May arrives at the EU summit.
1pm: Damian Green, the first secretary of state, speaks at a press gallery lunch.
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news from Jack Blanchard’s Playbook. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’ top 10 must reads.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on@AndrewSparrow.
I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.
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