[ad_1]
A “late and weak” trade deal between the European Union and the UK could be the best prospect now for trade talks, said former British Conservative leader William Hague.
The British conservative politician, now Lord Hague of Richmond, said the EU was trying to have its cake and eat it when it comes to a fisheries deal with the UK.
Speaking at a webinar hosted in Dublin, the former British Foreign Secretary said the EU must be “a bit more realistic” on the “pesky” issue of fishing if a post-Brexit trade deal with the Kingdom is to be reached. Joined before the end of the transition period on December 31.
Negotiations between the two sides are coming to a head this week, as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson set Thursday as the deadline to coincide with the start of an EU summit.
Mr. Hague questioned the view that there might not be much difference between a “late, weak” agreement and no trade agreement, which would be “very serious” for the auto, agricultural and road transport industries and “very serious. “for the UK economy and indeed for the Irish economy.”
Northern Ireland Protocol
It would be easier to implement the Northern Ireland protocol, the deal within the already agreed Brexit withdrawal agreement that prevents the return of a hard border on the island of Ireland, if there was a free trade agreement, he said.
“It is very important that all parties implement it in good faith,” the former Conservative leader told the Institute of International and European Affairs, the Dublin think tank.
Hague said the Internal Market Bill, the UK government’s national law which he has said would violate international law, “was not a good idea, to put it mildly.”
He is one of five of six living former British Conservative Party leaders who have publicly expressed their opposition to the bill, which threatens to violate the Brexit withdrawal treaty.
He noted how much he trusted international law every day when he was Foreign Secretary. He said he was pleased to “see a setback” from some British ministers with changes to the bill.
“Let’s hope a free trade agreement means that these proposed clauses become completely superfluous,” he said.
To reach a trade agreement, he said, both parties have to be “more constructive and more forward-looking” to reach an agreement on their differences over state aid, one of the contentious issues that divide the parties.
“The UK has often been accused of trying to have its cake and eat it. Well, that’s rather the case with fisheries and the European Union: recognizing that Britain is leaving the European Union, but still trying to insist on exactly the same fishing rights forever, ”Lord Hague said.
‘Politically realistic’
“I don’t know if that is realistic. It is not politically realistic in the UK so I hope there will be some movement on it in the next few days. “
The EU wants the continuation of fishing rights in UK waters, where European vessels catch more than half of its fish and shellfish.
An agreement on fisheries was more difficult to achieve because, while it represented only 0.1 percent of the British economy, it was “politically and totemically important,” said the British politician.
Hague, a long-time eurosceptic who voted to remain in the EU due to the consequences of the UK’s departure from the EU to Scotland and Northern Ireland, said that while he has not changed his views on Europe British politics has changed around him in the last 20 years.
“Somehow I went from being the outer edge of Euroscepticism to being a pragmatic centrist without moving and that was because the entire political spectrum passed me by, leaving me in a quite different position,” he said.
“That is my claim for consistency.”
[ad_2]