Liam Fox wary of transitional Brexit deal

Trade secretary says he does not recognize Michel Barnier’s Brexit bill figures.

Britain needs continuity in its trading arrangements with the EU, Liam Fox said Sunday, but warned of striking a transitional Brexit deal that was too similar to membership in the bloc.

The international trade secretary told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show he wanted the EU without the U.K. to be successful and trade deals that “minimize trade barriers” but refused to be drawn on whether Britain should remain a part of the EU’s customs union.

Describing himself as “instinctively a free trader,” Fox did not answer when asked if he was in favor of a transitional arrangement with the EU to tide Britain over between a formal exit in 2019 and any new trade deal with Brussels, as backed by his cabinet colleague Philip Hammond, the chancellor.

“That depends” on the kind of transitional deal that can be struck, Fox said, warning that an arrangement that was too close to the status quo would go against the wishes of those who voted to leave the EU.

Fox also said he “did not recognize” the figures quoted by Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s Brexit negotiator, who said the U.K. would have to pay “tens of billions” into the EU budget to cover Britain’s share of outstanding pensions liabilities, loan guarantees and spending on U.K-based projects.

Asked about the charge made Sunday morning by Nigel Farage, who said cabinet ministers had been banned from talking to him, Fox said he’d had “no such instructions.” He repeated the government’s line that there is “no vacancy” for a new British ambassador to the United States, a job that Donald Trump has said Farage would be well suited for.

He also dismissed suggestions that Prime Minister Theresa May should call early elections in 2017, saying there would be “enough political instability” in Europe next year with elections due in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

Osborne’s ‘wrong campaign’

Speaking just before Fox on the BBC show was former chancellor George Osborne, who said the British government fought “the wrong campaign” on Brexit and many of its arguments “fell on deaf ears.”

Osborne, relegated to the backbenches by May after she took over at 10 Downing Street, said the Remain campaign “lacked some of the authenticity of the Leave campaign.”

He said many of the topics that he, ex-PM David Cameron and other Remainers wanted to talk about did not make headway with voters, which left then focusing too much on the economic woes they said would befall Britain after a Brexit vote.

Osborne said he hoped the economic predictions he made before the referendum — including a so-called punishment budget — “turn out not to be true” but “let’s wait and see what happens.”

The former chancellor said it was vitally important to keep London a financial center after Brexit, adding that the failure to do so would benefit New York rather than European rivals such as Dublin or Frankfurt.

Osborne said the U.K. should not lose the “massive contribution” that immigration has made to the country but admitted that the Cameron government’s pledge to reduce the numbers of people coming in and then failing to hit its own targets “obviously hurt us in the referendum.”

Asked if he would like to see a second referendum, on the Brexit deal that May strikes with the bloc, Osborne said No — “the first referendum was enough for me.”

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