Jeremy Corbyn hints he would surrender to EU’s outrageous demand for a €100bn Brexit ‘divorce bill’ if he becomes Prime Minister
Labour leader indicated he is willing to pay up to quit the bloc despite Government figures insisting we owe Brussels nothing
JEREMY Corbyn has hinted he would surrender to the EU’s outrageous demand for a €100bn Brexit “divorce bill” if he becomes Prime Minister.
The Labour leader indicated he is willing to pay up to quit the bloc despite senior Government figures insisting we owe Brussels nothing.
He said the UK “must honour” its legal obligations on “long-term investment projects”, but qualified it by saying any other demands from the EU for money would be open to negotiation.
Mr Corbyn refused to say if he would agree to demands for the UK to settle its accounts before talks on a new trade deal will start.
And he said he would sit down with Brussels negotiators to agree a programme on “day one” of a Labour government.
It comes after Boris Johnson insisted the divorce bill, now potentially as high as £85 billion, would only be agreed once everything was agreed.
As he arrived for a foreign ministers summit in the Belgian capital he said: “As they say in Brussels: ‘Rien n’est acquis avant que tout soit acquis’ – Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
“We have got to look at the money, the whole thing, the trade arrangements, we have got to look at that as a package.”
The Foreign Secretary was speaking after David Davis warned the argument over the sequencing of talks is set to be the “row of the summer”.
The Brexit Secretary also said Britain will reject any attempt by the EU to keep European judges in charge of the rights of its citizens living in the UK after Brexit.
Mr Corbyn criticised the Tories’ “bellicose” approach to negotiations and said he was “really struggling with what David Davis’s strategy is – and Boris Johnson also, for that matter”.
Asked at the Royal College of Nursing conference in Liverpool if he would agree to an exit fee before beginning trade talks, he said: “Clearly where there are legal obligations on long-term investment projects both in this country and other places, they must be adhered to, we must honour them.
“The others, clearly, will be open to a negotiation and we would negotiate on that. But we need to know where those figures come from, know what the details of it are.
“But I don’t think we have to start this thing with a huge row or looking for areas of disagreement.”
He added: “The key issue has to be good relations between Britain and the EU in the future and that benefits both the EU and Britain actually, and hence the trade access which I see as the absolute priority.”
Asked again if he would agree to the EU’s desire for a phased approach to talks, Mr Corbyn went on: “I would ask them to discuss all of the issues – day one, Labour government, we will discuss all of those issues, agree a programme for it.
“We will start off with what I’ve said about (the rights of) EU nationals and what our priority is.
“And obviously we are more than happy to discuss all the other issues with them, we will obviously adhere to our legal requirements – I think that’s an important message to send to our colleagues in Europe.”