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Senior UK and European officials fear that the battle over whether Britain should automatically accept all the rules set by the EU after Brexit could delay any transition deal.
Both sides had hoped that the talks would be easier than the fraught arguments over Britain’s exit bill and the Northern Irish border but a growing backlash among pro-Brexit Conservatives could set back discussions.
A senior European government official said Britain was “wasting everyone’s time” looking for alternative mechanisms, especially given Theresa May’s desire to reach an in-principle agreement on the transition in March.
The EU will on Monday formally adopt instructions for Michel Barnier, its Brexit negotiator, which say that Britain should apply the bloc’s laws “as if it were a member state” during a transition lasting 20 months.
Such unconditional compliance, a core EU demand, has angered senior Brexiters in Westminster, with MPs such as Jacob Rees-Mogg likening it to being a “vassal state” that blindly follows rules it can no longer influence.
With factional fighting breaking out within the Tory party, Mrs May’s top aides began outlining demands for safeguards for the UK in meetings with other governments over the past fortnight, according to four officials familiar with the discussions.
Options include allowing the House of Commons to screen changes to EU laws and potentially raise objections before deciding whether to implement them.
Some British officials described the transitional regime as “mirroring” EU law, implying that Britain’s legal system would exist in parallel to the EU’s but not be subordinate to it — a red flag for many diplomats in Brussels.
David Davis, the Brexit secretary, hinted at the proposed power to object in a speech on Friday that called for a “means to remedy issues” if laws were “deemed to run contrary to our interests”.
The challenge for the prime minister is to demonstrate to Brexiters that Britain’s sovereignty will not be compromised during the transition, while not asking for a veto-like power that would scupper a deal with Brussels.
While the precise mechanism has yet to be outlined by London, the discussions have already alarmed the EU side.
“It is dangerous. It could derail the whole thing if they get stuck on this [position],” said one senior EU diplomat working on Brexit. “If there is no kind of automaticity . . . it goes completely against our principles. We will be in for a very long discussion.” [...]
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