British Prime Minister Theresa May faced a storm of protest over a transition deal struck with Brussels after conceding a series of her high-profile Brexit demands and agreeing to the “back stop” plan of keeping Northern Ireland under EU law to avoid a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.
After an intense few days of talks, British Secretary of State for Exiting the EU David Davis lauded a provisional agreement on the terms of a 21-month period, ending on Dec. 31, 2020, as a “significant” moment, giving businesses and citizens the reassurance they had demanded.
Under a joint withdrawal deal published on Monday, of which 75 percent is agreed, the UK will retain the benefits of the single market and customs union for “near enough to the two years we asked for,” Davis said, albeit while losing its role in any decisionmaking institutions.
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Whitehall officials said that UK Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox would be allowed to sign new trade deals to come into force in 2021 and the UK could choose to be part of the EU’s foreign policy and defense initiatives.
Legal certainty for UK businesses will only be in place once the agreement is signed and ratified — likely next year — but the markets reacted well to the news, with sterling climbing to its highest level in three weeks.
Yet as details emerged of the extent of the British government’s acquiescence to the EU’s terms, on issues ranging from immigration to fisheries, senior Conservative Party figures, including former leader Iain Duncan Smith, turned their fire on Downing Street.
“There does seem to be a real concern... It appears that at least through the implementation period nothing will change and I think that will be a concern and the government clearly has to deal with that because a lot of MPs are very uneasy about that right now,” Smith said.
The failure of the prime minister to get agreement on her very public and insistent demand that Britain could treat EU citizens arriving during the period differently to those already in the country was a cause of particular embarrassment for May.
“British citizens and European citizens of the 27 who arrive during the transition period will receive the same rights and guarantees as those who arrived before the day of Brexit,” European Chief Negotiator for the UK Exiting the EU Michel Barnier told reporters during a joint press conference with Davis in Brussels.
News that the UK had also rolled over on the demand of British Secretary of State for Justice Michael Gove for a renegotiation of the fishing quotas for the last year of the transition period was angrily denounced by Conservatives in Scotland.
“That we now have to wait until 2020 to assume full control is an undoubted disappointment. Having spoken to fishing leaders today, I know they are deeply frustrated with this outcome,” Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson said.
Scottish MPs concerned about fisheries were due to meet May yesterday for crisis talks.
Former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage called for May’s removal from office, describing her as “Theresa the appeaser.”
In relation to Northern Ireland, Barnier told reporters the UK had agreed that the withdrawal agreement would retain a default solution to avoid a hard border under which the north and south of the island of Ireland would remain in regulatory alignment.
After the publication of the last draft of the 53,000-word agreement, including that back stop, May had insisted that no British prime minister could sign up to a text that included a proposition that could “threaten the constitutional integrity of the UK by creating a customs and regulatory border down the Irish Sea.”
The EU and Ireland had insisted, in response, that the “back stop” option was simply the translation of an agreement struck in a joint report between the UK and the European Commission in December. That report suggested that regulatory alignment would be necessary if either a future trade deal or a bespoke technological solution failed to offer the same advantage of avoiding a hard border.
With the issue threatening to stall agreement on the transition period, a deal had been struck, Barnier said, although more work needed to be done.
“We agree today that the back stop solution must form part of the legal text of the withdrawal agreement,” he told reporters.
The UK insists that although it has accepted that a back stop will be included in the final withdrawal agreement, it has not accepted the current wording proposed by the EU.
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