02 September 2019

The Guardian: UK's 'boisterous' efforts to get new deal will not work, says senior MEP

Mairead McGuinness said the EU would not succumb to threats from the UK and said Boris Johnson’s approach “to take back control in a more boisterous way” than Theresa May was not the way to “yield results”.

In an interview with RTÉ Radio’s Sean O’Rourke programme, McGuinness confirmed talks were intensifying in Brussels but she said they should not be mischaracterised as a renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement.

Under the process, Michel Barnier would need to get a new mandate from 27 EU leaders, and in the present febrile atmosphere there was no prospect of change, she said.

“I don’t see why it would [change] because if you look at what that would involve, it would be mean that the democratically elected leaders of Europe would yield to a very unhelpful pressure that the British prime minister is heaping upon them, almost threatening that ‘look, we are going either way and you are going to have to deal with us,’” she told RTÉ.

McGuinness said she believed Johnson’s preferred option was no deal. “If you look at some of what has been said, it seems clear to me that Prime Minister Johnson is keen for a no-deal Brexit, believing that when and if the UK leaves on that day, that discussion on the future will start immediately and he will get a free trade agreement of his choosing in a very short period of time.”

She said Barnier had made it very clear in an article in the Sunday Telegraph that there would be no transition period or mini-deals if the UK crashed out on 1 November.

“It is saying very clearly to the UK: if you crash out, there are consequences and don’t expect us to be lenient in eight out of 10 areas to try to facilitate a decision which will be a very disruptive decision,” she said. [...]

Full article on The Guardian

Michel Barnier for The Sunday Telegraph: We will only start work on alternative arrangements if the current deal is ratified

© The Guardian