The British government on Friday accused the European Union of slamming the handbrake on Brexit negotiations after the bloc said Prime Minister Theresa May\u2019s blueprint was unworkable.<\/p>\n
European Council President Donald Tusk said bluntly at a meeting in Salzburg, Austria on Thursday that parts of May\u2019s plan simply \u2018will not work,\u2019 while French President Emmanuel Macron called pro-Brexit UK politicians \u2018liars\u2019 who had misled the country about the costs of leaving the 28-nation bloc.<\/p>\n
Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab accused the EU of rejecting Britain\u2019s proposals without offering \u2018credible alternatives\u2019 and said the bloc had \u2018yanked up the handbrake\u2019 on negotiations. \u201cFor the negotiations to go forward they\u2019re going to have to take their hand off the handbrake,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
May\u2019s Downing St. office said the prime minister would make a televised statement on the Brexit talks on Friday afternoon. There was no indication of what she planned to say.<\/p>\n
The rocky summit dashed British hopes of a breakthrough in stalled divorce talks, with just six months to go until Britain leaves the bloc on March 29.<\/p>\n
The judgment of British newspapers was brutal. The broadly pro-EU Guardian said May had been \u2018humiliated\u2019 The conservative Times of London said, \u201cHumiliation for May as EU rejects Brexit plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Brexit-supporting tabloid Sun branded bloc leaders \u2018EU dirty rats,\u2019 accusing \u2018Euro mobsters\u2019 Tusk and Macron of \u2018ambushing\u2019 May.<\/p>\n
Despite all the heated British rhetoric, the EU\u2019s position is not new. May\u2019s \u2018Chequers plan\u2019 named for the prime minister\u2019s country retreat where it was hammered out in July aims to keep the UK in the EU single market for goods, but not services, in order to ensure free trade with the bloc and an open border between the UK\u2019s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.<\/p>\n
EU officials have been cool on the plan from the start, saying Britain can\u2019t \u2018cherry-pick\u2019 elements of membership in the bloc without accepting all the costs and responsibilities.<\/p>\n
Yet British politicians and diplomats were taken aback by Tusk\u2019s blunt dismissal of the Chequers plan on Thursday _ and by his light-hearted Instagram post showing Tusk and May looking at a dessert tray and the words: \u201cA piece of cake, perhaps? Sorry, no cherries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller said British officials shouldn\u2019t have been surprised. Miller said the EU had \u201cmade it very clear where they stand and the UK has been so focused on its own infighting that they actually have not been listening.\u201d<\/p>\n
How can (May) have been so badly advised? It stinks of incompetence, the whole thing, when the moment of reality is only four weeks away,\u201d Miller told the BBC. Tusk said Thursday that an EU summit on Oct. 18 and 19 would be the moment of truth, when an agreement on divorce terms and the outlines of future trade would be sealed, or would fail.<\/p>\n
The biggest single obstacle to a deal is the need to maintain an open Irish border. Failing to do so could disrupt the lives of people and business on both sides, and undermine Northern Ireland\u2019s hard-won peace.<\/p>\n
Britain and the EU have agreed on the need for a legally binding backstop to guarantee there is no return to customs posts and other border checks. But Britain rejects the EU\u2019s proposed solution, which would keep Northern Ireland inside the bloc\u2019s customs union while the rest of the UK leaves.<\/p>\n
May said that would \u2018divide the United Kingdom into two customs territories.\u2019 She said Britain \u201cwill be bringing forward our own proposals shortly\u201d about how to break the impasse.<\/p>\n
Dealing with the EU is only part of May\u2019s problem. Her Chequers plan also faces opposition from pro-Brexit members of her own Conservative Party, including former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who say it would keep Britain tethered to the bloc, unable to strike new trade deals around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The British government on Friday accused the European Union of slamming the handbrake on Brexit negotiations after the bloc said Prime Minister Theresa May\u2019s blueprint was unworkable. European Council President Donald Tusk said bluntly at a meeting in Salzburg, Austria on Thursday that parts of May\u2019s plan simply \u2018will not work,\u2019 while French President Emmanuel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42717,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42715\/revisions\/42717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}