British prime minister (PM), Theresa May,was yesterday expected to tell MPs there is a new \u201csense of optimism\u201d in the Brexit talks after her last-minute deal aimed at moving them to the next phase.<\/p>\n
The UK is due to leave the EU in March 2019 but wants a two-year transition period after that date, with continued access to the single market to allow businesses to adjust.<\/p>\n
That is expected to be the focus of the next round of talks in Brussels in the new year, before discussions can start on a free trade agreement.<\/p>\n
The EU would not agree to move forward with talks until the UK agreed on a figure for its divorce bill.<\/p>\n
The Treasury indicated on Friday that it would be between \u00a335billion and \u00a339billion, paid over four years.<\/p>\n
The sticking point on the Irish border was also addressed, with both sides vowing to prevent the return of a \u201chard border\u201d.<\/p>\n
But a clause inserted at the insistence of the Irish government says the UK would have full \u201cregulatory alignment\u201d with the EU in some areas if it leaves the EU without a deal.<\/p>\n
Some have interpreted this as a victory for a \u201csoft\u201d Brexit, that would see the UK continue to be closely aligned with the EU single market and customs union but unable to strike its own trade deals.<\/p>\n
Brexit secretary, David Davis, said the chances of the UK exiting without a deal had \u201cdropped dramatically\u201d following Friday\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n
But he said if the UK did leave without a deal, the agreement on the border was not \u201clegally enforceable\u201d \u2013 and Britain would not pay any money to the EU.<\/p>\n
He stressed that the UK was committed to a \u201cfrictionless and invisible\u201d Irish border \u2013 and it would \u201cfind a way\u201d to keep that in the event of a \u201cno deal\u201d Brexit.<\/p>\n
He said he wanted an \u201coverarching\u201d free trade deal without tariff barriers, which he described as \u201cCanada plus plusplus\u201d \u2013a reference to the free trade deal struck between Canada and the EU.<\/p>\n
But, unlike the Canada deal, he wants financial services to be included in the tariff-free area, he told the BBC.<\/p>\n
Few Conservative Brexiteers have openly criticised the pm\u2019s deal, although the former Brexit minister David Jones suggested it needed to be \u201crefined\u201d and that the divorce bill could be far higher than \u00a339billion.\u2014BBC<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" British prime minister (PM), Theresa May,was yesterday expected to tell MPs there is a new \u201csense of optimism\u201d in the Brexit talks after her last-minute deal aimed at moving them to the next phase. The UK is due to leave the EU in March 2019 but wants a two-year transition period after that date, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":57502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57503,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57492\/revisions\/57503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}