'They want more!' John Redwood LOSES IT at Guy Verhofstadt after 'fantasy' Brexit slur
A CONSERVATIVE MP has criticised the European Union’s Brexit negotiator after he described Britain’s Brexit plan as a “fantasy”.
Tory MP urges Britain to stand up to 'posturing' EU
The Government released a paper insisting the UK would push for a customs partnership with the European Union after Britain has exited from the bloc.
Speaking on BBC News, John Redwood claimed that the Government should focus first on organising a trade agreement with the EU before he took a fiery swipe at Guy Verhofstadt.
He said: “I say first of all let’s get a trade agreement, or discover that we are not going to get a trade agreement and fall back on World Trade Organisation rules which would work okay from the British point of view.
“You can’t have a transition agreement until you know what the transition leads too, so let’s concentrate on the main agreement.
“I also think it would be possible to deal with these technical issues over the next 19 months so that we don’t need a long implementation period.
“We are making this wonderful offer to the EU on trade, zero for zero. Why don’t we carry on with zero tariffs on all those imports that come into the UK for return zero tariffs on the things we send them. Very fair deal.”
The proposals set out by the Department for Exiting the European Union would see Britain and the EU enforcing each other’s customs rules so there would be no need for a new physical border post-Brexit.
Mr Verhofstadt took to Twitter to remind the UK it should instead focus on citizen's rights and the Brexit divorce bill as a priority in its exit proceedings.
Nigel Farage says today is a victory for European commission
I think in the end maybe in 2019, that is what the EU will come round to
He tweeted: “To be in & out of the Customs Union & ‘invisible borders’ is a fantasy. First need to secure citizens rights & a financial settlement.”
The Conservative MP fired back at Mr Verhofstadt for his remark, insisting the EU would only be damaging themselves by not disussing future trade with the UK.
Mr Redwood raged: “They must tell us what barriers they want us to place in the way of German cars, French dairy products and wine coming into the UK because that is what they effectively saying.
“We will then assess whether those are sensible and whether we wish to impose them or not and obviously, conversely, they can impose one kind of barriers on our trade going there.
“All this has to be done under World Trade Organisation rules, half of all our trade will be tariff free anyway, if we don’t have an agreement and the average tariff will only be 3 per cent, so it’s all bearable.
“It would be so much easier and so much more sensible if both sides just went for frictionless free trade, and I think in the end maybe in 2019, that is what the EU will come round to.
“I just hope we don’t have another 18 months of painful interviews where nothing is actually happening and where the EU is posturing and hoping that the UK will give them more.”