Michel Barnier insists rejected Brexit deal is still ‘best compromise’
EU’s chief Brexit negotiator says UK must be ‘clear’ in ‘how we are to take things’
Michel Barnier has urged the UK to “very clearly” say what it wants from its future relations with the EU but insisted that the negotiated exit deal remains the “best compromise” Brussels can offer the UK.
Speaking publicly for the first time after MPs inflicted a historic defeat on Theresa May’s Brexit deal, the EU’s chief negotiator said the rejection gave no indication of what the UK wants or how now negotiations can proceed from here.
“This vote is not a clear manifestation of a positive majority which would define an alternative project,” Mr Barnier told MEPs in Strasbourg on Wednesday. “It is up to [the] British government to assess the outcome and indicate how we are to take things”.
Mr Barnier warned that there could be no changes to a legally binding arrangements to set up a northern Irish “backstop” designed to prevent a hard border in Ireland and which is loathed by Brexiter MPs as a “trap” to keep the UK aligned by EU customs rules.
“The backstop must remain a backstop — it must remain a credible backstop” he said.
With just 10 weeks before a planned exit date, Mr Barnier said Brussels would remain “lucid and clear” in ensuring there will not be a no-deal Brexit. He added that Brussels was open to having a closer future relationship with the UK than just a free trade agreement that has been prime minister May’s preference.
He added:
If the UK chooses to shift its red lines in the future, and if it makes the choice to be more ambitious, to go beyond the free trade agreement then the EU will be immediately ready to go hand in hand with that development and give a favourable response”
It is up to UK to explain. and how it wants to build up an ambitious and sustainable relationship.
We cannot exclude any scenario and this is particularly true of the no deal scenario. We are fearing more than ever the risk of a no deal.
Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit chief, urged all Mrs May’s opponents — including Brexit supporters, the Labour party, and the Northern Irish DUP — to “come out of their trenches” to find a cross party consensus for a new way forward on Brexit.
Roberto Gaultieri, an Italian centre-left MEP whose group is allied with Labour, said the meaningful vote could open the way for a second referendum. “Maybe it is the right time for the people to have their say with new elections or a new referendum”, he said.