hello good evening it's been 1628 days
since the brexit referendum
24 days to go until the end of
transition tonight still no trade deal
no sign of breakthrough but for those
seeking optimism
there is the promise of a face-to-face
meeting between the pm
and the eu commission president the idea
that the key leaders would meet if there
was no chance whatsoever is an odd one
perhaps the meeting suggests they're
closer than they're actually telling us
or perhaps not tonight the pm asked his
team to give him an
overview of the problems as if that were
not yet
clear well we'll be looking at the
economic and political implications both
here
and in europe in a moment but we start
with the day's events
and nick what uh so far today then nick
what's happened
well emily in the last few hours mps
have voted to put
back into the uk internal market bill
those
controversial clauses relating to
northern ireland and the withdrawal
agreement
those are the ones that would in the
words of the uk lead to a
limited and specified breach of
international law now the eu is very
relaxed about that
because the uk government said them to
them today if we get a free
trade agreement with you then we will
let those clauses lapse now on that
free trade agreement i do have to say it
is pretty gloomy on
both sides the uk side saying no
progress in
the last few days significant
differences and they're saying we feel
very gloomy about this
interestingly boris johnson has been
keeping in close touch
updating brexit veterans and they say to
me they are very confident that the
prime minister
is not going to breach any of his
redlines
on sovereignty and one of those veterans
said to me look every five minutes they
think it's going to be a deal
and then they think it's going to be no
deal but this veteran's current thinking
is it is no deal but i do have to say i
was speaking to
a minister who's pretty closely involved
in this and they said to me
they do not believe that boris johnson
would be traveling
in person to brussels to meet ursula
wonderland
if he thought it was all hopeless and
they drew a parallel with the meeting
that took place
last year between boris johnson and then
the then teacher leo veradka
in the northwest they met in person they
were pictured together
and uh this minister said to me david
frost the chief negotiator
he recommended that meeting and he's
recommended this meeting
so he knows what the optics of that
picture will look like but obviously
it could still not be a deal what is
your sense of reaction from brussels
tonight then nick
well they are not happy and it's
interesting i understand that some eu
ambassadors who are briefed by michelle
barnier
the eu's chief negotiator this morning
they were very very struck
about how downbeat he looked and
agreement in a sense between the eu and
the uk
but no agreement on the three key areas
so that's
fishing that's the so-called level
playing field which is can you find
common standards and it's the sort of
the governance around all of that now
the eu what i'm hearing from brussels
they're saying to the uk is
we've got the memo we understand the
importance of you taking back
retaining and respecting sovereignty but
they then say
if you the uk take an absolutist view of
that sovereignty
that will lead you to no deal nick
thanks very much indeed well we asked
the government to come on tonight
it declined now to discuss this further
i'm joined by the brexiteer daniel
hannon
adviser at the government on trade and
telegraph columnist and by philip
rycroft who until last year was
permanent secretary of the department
for exiting
the european union um thanks to you both
gentlemen and i guess we know already
these clear outlines of where the
disagreements are
um philip can i start with you where can
they reach agreement then you know the
eu
players well where is the landing zone
that they can
find presumably on wednesday well it's
worth remembering that
these negotiations have been going on as
we know for a long time now
and there's an awful lot of stuff that
will have been pinned down
perhaps 95 percent uh of a
of a trade deal sorted out teams working
on legal texts to have that ready
for legal translation and all the rest
of it so as nick watts said you've got
the three
outstanding issues fisheries is at the
end of the day a numbers game
um how much access to uk waters to the
quota and uk waters
does the eu fleet have what sort of
transition period should there be
these things can be sorted out if there
is a will
the more difficult issues are the points
of principle
sovereignty from the uk side in terms of
the ability to set our own rules
from the eu perspective it's protecting
the integrity of the single market
from what they would see is potentially
unfair competition from uk
based businesses so just to get you to
the end of that point we know where the
differences are but where do you think
is the actual
where do you see the compromise coming
because presumably they wouldn't they
wouldn't be having this meeting
wednesday or so if the if there wasn't
some bit where there was compromise
sure i think the uk has to be able to
demonstrate on the level playing field
issues particularly on state aid which
is
is the biggest sticking point there that
it has an
independent regulator in the uk to
manage
state aid within a framework of rules
within within the uk i think the eu
side has got to accept that it cannot
insist
that the uk has to follow every change
in eu rules over time somewhere in
between
those two positions it seems to me there
is a potential answer
dan does that sound pretty much right to
you
is that a concession that you could see
our government making well
on fisheries i think i agree with what
philip said i mean the the the issue is
sovereignty
and once that's respected of course we
can be flexible about numbers and
and quotas and and time scales i think
the bigger issue
is the the question of whether britain
is really an
independent equal partner and neighbor
of the eu
and i think this is an emotional rather
than an economic
question for brussels i think there's an
element in brussels that is still
affronted by the fact of the referendum
and sees brexit as michel barnier once
said
as needed to teach us a lesson and still
basically regards britain as a kind of
recalcitrant province which is why
it's not prepared to do the the kind of
basic trade deal with us that it has
done with other countries that we're now
doing with other countries
uh it's not really about
state aid which is much lower here than
in europe or
following eu social and environmental
standards again
our domestic standards are way way
higher than what
are required as a minimum by the eu i
think it's more this
this reluctance completely to let go
they still want to have some oversight
some society
and it's going to last for ages isn't it
just isn't it much simpler and much more
practical for the eu than that they just
don't want a competitor right
on their doorstep isn't it that simple
well you'll remember that when theresa
may
offered a deal that would have bound us
very very closely to
all eu technical standards not just
ecological
and employment laws but all technical
standards
uh that was put forward at the salzburg
summit and it was
thrown back in her face and michelle
barnier went around
brandishing this graph you'll remember
it with a staircase showing that
the only option if we were leaving was
to have a straightforward canada style
trade deal of course the moment that
boris took him at his word and said all
right that's what will do
the offer was snatched away and all
sorts of last-minute problems were put
in the way
and that's why i think really the the
question is whether the eu can accept
the fact
emotionally as well as technically it
brexit yeah i hear that i mean i i think
canada as you know is a bit of a red
herring because it doesn't
include financial services there it
doesn't have a border with the eu trades
approximately i don't know one tenth of
what we
do with the eu but but do you accept
that philip that there is this sort of
uh punishment element do you hear any of
that
uh there's always been true uh i think
from the off that the eu
member states and you concerned that it
didn't look as though the uk could get a
better deal
outside of the eu than it had as a
member state
and of course that's been part of it but
the sort of deal that the uk is seeking
even this
relatively thin trade deal that we're
after now uh
does of course in many respects go
beyond
what has been on offer um to other
countries in particular
and notably it would be tariff and quota
free
and that's why the the eu is concerned
about the relative competitive advantage
that uk businesses might take if the
rules in the uk
are allowed to to to lapse or to get
fall much below
the standards that pertain in the eu
well if if it is so relatively thin as a
trade deal as you as you say
then would it be so much worse to go to
no deal and to let the sides
realize what had happened and then you
know meet each other at a point where
there was the appetite for a deal again
well there
are there are two issues in there one is
is is no deal worse than a deal
absolutely it is tariffs supplying would
have a really big impact
on some important sectors like agri-food
and
automotive don't forget if we don't get
a trade deal all the other elements of
the relationship fall away
like internal security uh short-term
disruption at the border in an ideal
context is likely to be a lot worse
and we have to remember also the impact
within the uk itself
important elections coming up in
scotland next year uh
no deal uh uh and a no deal outcome
would be very much grossed to a
nationalist
mill and but in the context of a no deal
it is unlikely that negotiations would
resume
anytime soon there'd be a lot of bad
blood a lot of bad temper
political pride would kick in it would
be difficult to get back round the table
damn what would you say to those in your
party who have openly said they would
actually prefer
no deal are they wrong
yes of course they're wrong it's much
better it must be better to have a deal
with our immediate neighbors who are our
suppliers our customers
and our friends and our allies but you
know i just
i am constantly bewildered by hearing
we heard it just just now this idea that
countries somehow trade with each other
out of kindness that you know having a
zero terrorist regime somehow a favor to
somebody else rather than
a favor to yourself and your own
consumers you know we are negotiating
uh zero tariff trade deals with
australia and new zealand at the moment
no one's suggesting that the
there needs to be uh an element of kind
of
oversight of each other's regulations in
order to do that and the reason we're
doing it is not just because we like the
australians it's because it's good for
both of us
the eu is not prepared badly to think
that attitude in the way that it does to
everyone but isn't that the crux of it
that actually the more we talk about
sovereignty the more it sounds like we
can't give up
any of our power that is needed to do
any bilateral trade deal
i mean that's that's what you have to do
you have to invest in trust with another
side
but that is emphatically emily not what
we're doing because
when we are after the rejection of the
salzburg terms when
we were told look if you want to leave
it's got to be on the on the simple
canada
type deals we've we only looked at
extant deals that the eu has already
done with south korea
uh with japan with canada we did not ask
for things that went beyond them
and so we're not asking for anything
unprecedented the eu isn't
uh claiming that we're asking for
something so unusual that it needs to
have
sovereignty that their argument
bizarrely is that
they need to have some oversight over
our standards because we're nearby
do you want to come back on that what is
the answer to that
so being nearby actually does matter in
trade terms
uh and if you look at the volume of
trade as you mentioned earlier on
between the uk
and the eu it's very much greater than
the volume of trade between the eu and
japan and australia and all the rest
of it and it's 43 44
of uk trade in both exports in both
goods and services
with the eu we are a very major uh
trading partner on their doorstep
and that is why they have these concerns
it isn't at the end of the day matter of
sentiment
from their perspective i think it is
about concerns about protecting the
integrity of the single market
and that's why they're putting these
conditions in place
to step back for a second you know when
you look at where we are four and a half
years on
with either a relatively thin trade deal
or perhaps no deal at all is
is that what you and and brexiteers were
dreaming of is
is this what it was all about well i
mean you'll know that during uh before
during and after the referendum i
argued for something much more uh along
the lines of what the swiss
ended up with uh an after deal that
sadly was shot down by both sides
in the aftermath of the referendum there
was a kind of polarization and it
quickly emerged there wasn't much
support for that but i have to say
looking at the way
in which the eu has conducted these
latest
i wonder whether even that would have
been on offer without also wanting us in
the common fisheries policy wanting
the customs union and a bunch of extra
that's a ponderable isn't it but uh
thank you both very much thanks for
joining us tonight