Michel Barnier, the EU's former chief Brexit negotiator, has said the UK cannot rejoin the European Union without accepting freedom of movement between the UK and the EU, warning there will be “no cherry picking” for Britain.
Asked on the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg whether Britain could rejoin the single market without unlimited immigration in both directions, Barnier said: “There is no cherry picking. There will be no possibility to have one freedom and not the other.”
The Four Freedoms as Conditions
“The four freedoms (of goods, movement of people, services and capital) are clearly the four conditions to be inside the single market,” he said.
Barnier stated there would be no fee simply to rejoin, but added: “There will be the usual contribution of any member state to the European budget.”
Rebate 'Off the Table'
Barnier said he thinks the £5 billion annual rebate that Margaret Thatcher negotiated on UK payments into the EU's central budget would be “off the table” in any future agreement. He said: “We are speaking of a new situation, and it cannot be exactly as the past situation before Brexit.”
The Prime Minister is due to sign a series of deals with the EU on November 20 in Brussels, focused on reducing post-Brexit trade barriers on food and farming, working more closely on emissions trading, and making it easier for young people from the UK to work, live and study in Europe and vice versa. He has suggested he wants to deepen ties with Europe further after the summit.
Trade-Offs Acknowledged
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has acknowledged there will be “trade-offs” for Britain as it seeks to get closer to the EU again. Asked by Kuenssberg whether a 150,000 cap on Europeans coming to Britain under a youth mobility scheme would be acceptable to her constituents, Nandy, who represents the leave-voting Wigan constituency, said: “Well, we'll have those conversations with our European counterparts, but we'll also have those conversations too with the British people, because it is right to say that there are costs as well as benefits to a closer relationship with the European Union.”
“There are trade-offs to be made, and we can't cut people out of that conversation,” she added.
Nandy also suggested she is not in favour of rejoining the trade bloc, telling the BBC: “The only thing that I think the British people are absolutely united on right now is that we left the European Union a decade ago with the promise of a close Brexit deal and the promise of benefits from that deal, and most of those have not been realised.” “It's not working for people across this country, and we've got to do better,” she said.
