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Thursday, March 28, 2024

40-b euro Brexit bill speculation, says UK

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Theresa May’s office dismissed as speculation a report that the UK is prepared to pay a 40 billion-euro ($47 billion) bill to leave the European Union, while leading Brexit supporters pushed back against paying anything at all.

The figure surfaced in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, which cited three government officials it didn’t identify as saying Britain would offer the sum in a bid to push the discussion toward a future trade deal. On Monday, though, a government official who asked not to be identified talking about issues that haven’t been resolved called it speculation, and leading Brexit supporters in the prime minister’s own party rejected any notion of a payment.

“There is no logic to this figure,” Jacob Rees-Mogg, a leading pro-Brexit Conservative lawmaker, said on Twitter. “Legally we owe nothing.” A colleague, John Redwood, told LBC radio: “There is absolutely no legal need or political need to offer them anything at all, full stop.”

The Brexit bill is key to unlocking progress in the discussions as time ticks down toward the March 2019 deadline when Britain will depart the bloc, deal or no deal. A third round of talks with EU negotiators is scheduled for later this month, and the bill, alongside the border with Ireland and the rights of EU citizens, is one of three issues the EU lead negotiator, Michel Barnier, says progress must be made on before talks can move on to discussing the future trading relationship.

“This business that we have pay to get them to talk about trade is just completely ridiculous because they need to talk about trade more than we need to talk about trade,” Redwood said. “We all know that they will talk about trade before March 2019 because it’s in their interests to do so, and we have absolutely no need to pay them a penny to get them to talk about something they need to talk about.”

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While Brexit Secretary David Davis told the Sunday Times that the reported sum was “news to me,” the Telegraph story detailed a degree of behind-the-scenes bartering, with the figure seen as a potential compromise between what the EU wants and the UK’s starting position.

A commission official said the EU’s executive arm wouldn’t speculate on rumors. The official also noted that Barnier has explained on several occasions that the financial settlement covers all commitments made by the UK as a member of the bloc.

While there may not be agreement within the government over the bill, there’s been a shift within May’s cabinet, including among ardent Brexit supporters, to a view that a transition period is unavoidable to bridge Brexit day and when a new trade agreement sets in. The problem has been over how long this should last—with Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond envisioning a period of three years—and whether the free movement of people should be allowed to continue in the interim.

Former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King told BBC Radio 4 Saturday that the government “probably wasted a year” and that no Brexit deal was “not the first preference of anybody.”

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