No need to worry, David Davis has the intent to have this leaving the EU malarky covered.
Brexit
David Davis scrambles to salvage EU relations after 'damaging trust'
Brexit secretary moves to persuade Guy Verhofstadt that UK can be trusted after claiming deal was just ‘statement of intent’
David Davis on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show at the weekend when he made the comments about the UK’s agreement with the EU. Photograph: Handout/Getty Images
Daniel Boffey in Brussels
Tuesday 12 December 2017 11.34 GMTLast modified on Tuesday 12 December 2017 16.41 GMT
David Davis has scrambled to salvage relations with Brussels after he was accused of damaging trust in the Brexit talks by making inflammatory comments over the status of Britain’s promises.
The Brexit secretary engaged in urgent telephone diplomacy on Tuesday in an attempt to persuade Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s
Brexitcoordinator, that the UK government’s word could be depended upon.
Brussels has been deeply irritated by Davis’s claim over the weekend that the UK’s concessions in an agreement struck last week with the EU to move talks on were merely
a statement of intent without legal backing.
In an unusual move, the European parliament’s main parties announced on Tuesday morning that they had drawn up an amendment on their Brexit resolution, on which MEPs will vote on Wednesday, personally condemning the Brexit secretary for damaging trust.
Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister, further claimed in a press conference in Strasbourg that the Brexit secretary’s comments were “unacceptable” and would provoke a wider hardening of the EU’s positions, including in the member states’ guidelines for the future relationship, to be signed off by leaders on Friday.
Guy Verhofstadt
✔@guyverhofstadt
After
@DavidDavisMP’s unacceptable remarks, it’s time the UK government restores trust. These amendements will further toughen up our resolution.
Davis later made public details of a conversation on Tuesday afternoon with Verhofstadt, who is leading the steering group of the European parliament, which will have a veto on any future withdrawal agreement.
The British cabinet minister tweeted: “Pleasure, as ever, to speak to my friend [Guy Verhofstadt] we both agreed on the importance of the joint report. Let’s work together to get it converted into legal text as soon as possible.”
An EU official later said that the guidelines for talks on future relations that had been drafted were already “minister Davis-proofed”, and it was clear what the consequences were if commitments were “not respected”.
The circulated draft includes the demand that “negotiations in the second phase can only progress as long as all commitments undertaken during the first phase are respected in full and translated faithfully in legal terms as quickly as possible”.
The latest draft also makes clear that talks about a future relationship will only start after an EU leaders’ summit in March, and that the leaders will make a “last call” on Friday to the British cabinet to offer a clear vision of the future.
An EU official said: “We expect more clarity on the end state, on the end objective … Until now it is no single market, no customs union but a bespoke partnership. If no new elements will come from London then we will work on that basis. The basis of no customs union, single market.”
The row over Davis’s comments could not have come at a more sensitive time, with EU ministers and the European commission’s chief negotiator,
Michel Barnier, discussing their statement in Brussels ahead of this week’s summit.
Verhofstadt told reporters: “As someone said, it’s an own goal. It is clear that the European council will be more strict now … I have seen a hardening of the position of the council and there will be a hardening of the position of the parliament.”
Under the proposed amendments to the parliament’s resolution, MEPs will claim that in calling the outcome of phase one of the negotiations a mere statement of intent, Davis’s intervention threatened “to undermine the good faith that has been built during the negotiations”.
Verhofstadt said: “We will introduce amendments concerning the – for us – unacceptable description by David Davis of this agreement, saying it was merely a statement of intent rather than a legally enforceable text. And in our opinion that is really undermining the trust that is necessary in such negotiations.”
Separately, the German government chided Theresa May for giving Britons a different version of events from those she agreed in Brussels at a breakthrough meeting on negotiation talks last Friday.
The
Europe minister Michael Roth of the Social Democrats told German media he was “somewhat taken aback” that the language May used in Brussels “differed somewhat” to what she had since said in London, referring in particular to May’s suggestion on Monday that Britain would only pay the final bill to the EU once a trade agreement had been reached.
Davis made his comments on Sunday in response to reports that the British government had told some hardline Brexiters that assurances that Northern Ireland would maintain “full alignment” with EU law in future were meaningless.
The Brexit secretary explained that the
joint agreement struck with the European commission on the Irish border, citizens’ rights and the financial settlement, was “more a statement of intent than it was a legally enforceable thing”.
The comments caused consternation in Dublin and prompted the European commission to remind the prime minister in a statement that she had “shaken hands” on a “gentlemen’s agreement” last Friday.
Davis
subsequently told LBC radio on Monday that his comments had been misinterpreted and twisted.
“I said this was a statement of intent, which was much more than just legally enforceable,” he said. “Of course it’s legally enforceable under the withdrawal agreement, but even if that didn’t happen for some reason, if something went wrong, we would still be seeking to provide a frictionless, invisible border with Ireland.”
The Liberal Democrats’ Brexit spokesman, Tom Brake, said: “David Davis has endangered the entire divorce agreement because he couldn’t resist playing to the Brexit gallery and because the cabinet can’t even agree among itself what kind of Brexit it wants.
“The sheer incompetence and chaos coming from the government is unprecedented in my lifetime. Every time David Davis speaks, the Brexit divorce grows worse for Britain.”
The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, and one minute Davis agrees something to only then contradict himself. Davis is the arse end of the pantomime horse.
