The European Union and Britain clashed over a post-Brexit trade deal on Monday with Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisting he need not sign up to the bloc’s rules and Brussels warning of tariffs and quotas unless he did.
Britain wants to negotiate a trade deal by the end of 2020, though EU leaders say the further Britain diverges from their rules, the less access it will have to the EU market.
Speaking just over two days since Brexit, Johnson cast Britain as the “supercharged” superman of free trade, and while it would not seek to undermine the bloc with a race to the bottom, he said there was no need to accept EU rules.
“There is no need for a free trade agreement to involve accepting EU rules on competition policy, subsidies, social protection, the environment or anything similar, any more than the EU should be obliged to accept UK rules,” Johnson said.
The choice for Britain, Johnson said, was between a deal like Canada has with the EU or a much more distant deal like Australia.
He spoke in the Painted Hall at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, where grand 18th Century paintings celebrate Britain’s prosperity and naval power.
Ambitious deal
The EU wants an ambitious zero-tariffs and zero-quotas trade deal with Britain but this will be conditional on open and fair competition between the UK and the 27-nation bloc it quit last week, the EU’s Brexit negotiator said.
Michel Barnier, unveiling the European Commission’s mandate for talks with Britain on their future relationship, said there should be a level playing field over the long term on social, state aid and environmental standards.
“You cannot accuse us of a lack of ambition,” he told a news conference in Brussels. “First and foremost, we will defend the interests of the union, its citizens and its businesses.”
“We’ll continue to prepare for a situation where no deal is being arrived at. We certainly don’t want that to happen. We’ll work to avoid that, but if we can’t manage a deal by the end of the year there will be a cliff-edge on many fronts.
“There will some areas where they’ll be no other solution. I’m thinking about trade and fisheries here,” Barnier added.
The more that the EU and Britain have common standards, the higher the quality of access for Britain to the European single market, he said.
Barnier said a free trade agreement must include a deal on fisheries that would give reciprocal assess to waters and conditions on these must be established by July 1, 2020.
“We are ready to offer all this even though we know that there will be strong competition between the UK, our immediate neighbour, and the EU in the future,” he said.
A 33-page draft mandate for negotiations released as Barnier spoke had one section in bold, and that read: “The envisaged partnership must ensure open and fair competition, encompassing robust commitments to ensure a level playing field.”
The partnership should ensure “common high standards” in state aid, competition, state-owned enterprises, labour and environmental standards and “relevant tax matters”, it said.
The draft mandate also sees a role for the Court of Justice of the EU, for example in the case of a dispute.
Trade talks will begin in March. After criticising his predecessor Theresa May’s approach in negotiating a divorce deal with the EU, Johnson is striking a much tougher tone.
At the moment, much of EU-Australia trade runs along the basic World Trade Organisation rules, though there are specific agreements for certain goods. Australia is in the process of negotiating a trade deal with the EU, however.
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The United Kingdom finally cast off from the European Union on Friday for an uncertain future, with Brexiteers claiming victory and popping champagne corks for an “independence day” they said marked a new era for the country.
In its biggest shift since losing its global empire, the United Kingdom slipped away at 2300 GMT, turning its back after 47 years on the post-World War Two project that sought to build the ruined nations of Europe into a global power.
Beside the British parliament, flag-waving Brexit supporters cheered, revelling in a mix of nostalgia, patriotism and defiance. Some sang “God Save the Queen”, while others hugged amid the smoke of fireworks.
“The war is over: we have won,” Nigel Farage, a leading Leave campaigner, told the crowd. “This is the single most important moment in the modern history of our great nation.”
On the white cliffs of Dover, the message: “The UK has left the EU” was projected between a British and an EU flag.
Once considered the unlikely dream of a motley crew of “eurosceptics” on the fringes of British politics, Brexit also weakens the EU, conceived as a way to bind together Europe’s major powers in peace after centuries of conflict.
When the exit day finally came, after 3-1/2 years of wrangling since the 2016 referendum, it was an anticlimax of sorts: while Brexiteers waving flags toasted freedom in the rain, many Britons showed indifference or relief.
“For many people, this is an astonishing moment of hope, a moment they thought would never come,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the New York-born leader of the official “Leave” campaign, said.
He celebrated in Downing Street with English sparkling wine and a distinctly British array of canapés including Shropshire blue cheese and Yorkshire puddings with beef and horseradish.
The EU’s most powerful leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, cast Brexit as a sad moment that was a turning point for Europe. The EU warned that leaving would be worse than staying.
U.S. President Donald Trump has long supported Brexit. His Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Britons wanted to escape the “tyranny of Brussels”.
At EU headquarters in Brussels, the British flag was lowered. Little will change immediately, however, as a transition period keeps the United Kingdom as a member in all but name until the end of 2020.
Supporters young and old packed into Parliament Square to hear Farage.
“I’m not jumping around celebrating, it’s just absolute satisfaction and relief and optimism,” said Emma Sandercock, a 53-year-old secretary from Northamptonshire in central England.
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The United Kingdom leaves the European Union on Friday for an uncertain Brexit future, its most significant geopolitical move since the loss of empire and a blow to 70 years of efforts to forge European unity from the ruins of two world wars.
The country will slip away an hour before midnight from the club it joined in 1973, moving into the no man’s land of a transition period that preserves membership in all but name until the end of this year.
At a stroke, the EU will be deprived of 15% of its economy, its biggest military spender and the world’s international financial capital of London. The divorce will shape the fate of the United Kingdom — and determine its wealth — for generations to come.
“This is the moment when the dawn breaks and the curtain goes up on a new act,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson will say in a television address, though he has given few clues about his post-Brexit plans beyond inspirational words.
“This is the dawn of a new era,” Johnson, one of the main leaders of the “Leave” campaign in the 2016, will say.
Beyond the symbolism of turning its back on 47 years of membership, little will actually change until the end of 2020, by which time Johnson has promised to strike a broad free trade agreement with the EU, the world’s biggest trading bloc.
For proponents, Brexit is a dream “independence day” for a United Kingdom escaping what they cast as a doomed German-dominated project that is failing its 500 million population.
