Liam Fox accuses EU of behaving like gangsters in its threat to punish Britain for Brexit
The International Trade Secretary slammed the EU's approach to ongoing talks with Britain - and warned that if they slapped tariffs on trade it would cost consumers £20billion
TRADE chief Liam Fox today accused the European Union of behaving like gangsters in its threat to punish Britain for leaving the bloc.
The blistering attack risks reopening a bitter row over Brexit and comes a day after Brussels published plans for only a restrictive Canada-style free trade deal.
And in comments that are likely to infuriate EU Brexit negotiators, the International Trade Secretary called on Brussels to “keep the temperature down” ahead of the start of trade negotiations this month – and adopt and conduct themselves with “decorum and patience”.
Mr Fox warned that introducing tariffs on UK-EU trade after Brexit would damage member states much more than Britain because of our £80billion trade surplus with the bloc.
Import taxes would raise up to £15billion a year for Britain’s public finances, he said – but the EU would only raise around £6billion by slapping tariffs on UK imports.
And the money would go to the European Commission’s budget and not member states.
Speaking at the British Chambers of Commerce conference in London today, Mr Fox said: “European member states would get some of the pain but not the mitigation. We’d get some of the pain but more of the mitigation.
"That doesn’t make any sense. What makes sense to me is that we maintain a tariff free environment, we don’t add business costs, we don’t add costs to our consumers.”
Urging the EU to ditch its obsession with punishing Britain, Mr Fox added: “ I think that’s largely dependent on the balance between the political ideology of an ever closer union that sees Britain’s exit as something to be set up as an example to others – that it’s painful and therefore you don’t want to do that.
“The idea of punishing Britain to me is not the language of a club, it’s the language of a gang."
His comments come as British Chambers of Commerce boss Adam Marshall took a swipe at the Labour leader ahead of its annual event.
Adam Marshall said that "business communities are worried" about the policies being put forward by Jeremy Corbyn's leftie agenda which were "superficially seductive".
The Labour leader wants to take water and energy companies back into the public domain - even though it would cost Britain billions that we just don't have.
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In an article for Mr Marshall said: "The breezy, facile discussion on nationalisation underway on the hard left of the UK’s political spectrum is wrong-headed.
"Nationalisation is an easy argument to make, and is superficially attractive to many. So it is up to businesses of all sizes to challenge the notion that the answer to poor procurement or less-than perfect regulatory oversight is the wholesale nationalisation of large parts of our economy."
And today he will also call on Government to do more to get basic infrastructure - like local roads, railways, airports, houses and mobile phone signal - right.