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Bloomberg
A leading Brexit minister in Theresa May’s government was forced into a painful political admission — the UK is legally bound to settle its divorce bill even if it doesn’t get a future trade deal with the EU.
To make the bitter pill of 39 billion pounds ($52 billion) easier to swallow for the public and Brexit cheerleaders, May has been insisting that the financial settlement and a free-trade deal are part of the same package.
The EU has always been clear they’re separate.
After a grilling by lawmakers, Suella Braverman was forced to acknowledge that Parliament will vote on paying the so-called Brexit bill before the legal text of a future trade agreement is ready. Any decision to halt payments — which are due to continue for years — would require a renegotiation.
It’s particularly significant that the admission comes from Braverman, a Brexit campaigner who used to head a group of some 60 Conservative euroskeptic lawmakers.
British officials have said in private that they’re looking to make the payments conditional on sealing that future trading relationship, conscious of how unpopular it would be domestically for Britain to be seen to continue to pay billions of pounds into the EU budget without securing a commercial agreement.