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29 December 2018

Bloomberg: Brexit may not happen, Trade secretary says


The chances of the UK leaving the European Union are “50-50’’ if Parliament rejects Prime Minister Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement in January, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said in a Sunday Times interview.

“If we were not to vote for that, I’m not sure I would give it much more than 50-50,” the veteran campaigner for Brexit told the newspaper. “For me that would induce a sense that we had betrayed the people that voted in the referendum.”

Fox told his fellow lawmakers that it was a “matter of honor” to back May and he’d rather accept an agreement that falls short of the ideal than risk Brexit’s failure.

“For me, the worst possible outcome of this process would be no Brexit,” he said in the interview. [...]

Fox said he would like to see more EU concessions on the so-called Irish backstop, language in the deal meant to avoid the creation of a hard border between Ireland, which remains in the bloc, and Northern Ireland.

In an separate interview, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker suggested the U.K. and EU should “start the following day to prepare the future relations” should parliament approve the exit deal in January, he told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

‘Deeply Mistrust’

“I get the impression that the majority of British members of parliament deeply mistrust Mrs. May and the EU,” Juncker said in the interview published Sunday. “People imply that our goal is to keep the U.K. in the EU by any means. But that’s not our intention. We just want clarity on the future relations. And we respect the result of the referendum.” [...]

Full article on Bloomberg

Liam Fox interview for The Sunday Times



© Bloomberg


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