LONDON — British Prime Minister
Rishi Sunak
on Monday denied that his government was seeking to row back on the UK’s EU
withdrawal deal, despite an apparent growing backlash against Brexit.
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Brexit-supporter Sunak told business leaders that
life outside the EU was “already delivering enormous benefits and
opportunities”.
He touted greater curbs on immigration — a key plank
of the Brexit deal — and closer trade ties with Asia.
But he added: “Let me be unequivocal about this:
under my leadership, the UK will not pursue any relationship with Europe that
relies on alignment with EU laws.”
The UK left the EU in full in January 2021, after
years of political wrangling since the divisive referendum n 2016 to split from
the bloc.
Brexit saw the UK withdraw from the European single
market and customs union, while free movement between member states and the
jurisdiction of European courts ended.
But a deal between London and
Brussels maintained
largely tariff-free trade with its remaining 27 members.
Sunak’s comments follow a Sunday Times report that
“senior government figures” were planning to “put Britain on the path towards a
Swiss-style relationship” with the EU.
Switzerland has far closer ties with the bloc
through bilateral agreements allowing access to the single market, a high
degree of free movement and by paying into EU coffers.
The report, and comments last week by finance
minister Jeremy Hunt, who voted to remain in the EU, that he was eager to
remove the “vast majority” of trade barriers with the EU.
That has sparked unease among euroskeptic members of
the ruling Conservative party.
“The government has got to focus on what it needs to
do, rather than trying to reopen a settled debate about Europe,” former Tory
leader Iain Duncan Smith told The Sun.
Bad deals?
The backlash stirred memories of the febrile aftermath of the referendum
about how best to deliver Brexit.
Former prime minister Boris Johnson, a staunch
critic of his predecessor Theresa May’s plan for Swiss-style ties, eventually
won the argument with his harder version of Brexit.
He won a landslide election victory in December 2019
on a vow to “get Brexit done”, having negotiated his own 2019 divorce deal.
However, three years on, the UK is in a deep
economic crisis and criticism of both Johnson’s agreement and the whole Brexit
project is increasing.
Amid decades-high inflation and forecasts of its
longest ever recession, a new YouGov poll last week suggested 56 percent of
people now think it was wrong to leave the EU.
Some 32 percent were still in favor.
The Office for Budget Responsibility watchdog
assessed that Brexit had had a “significant adverse impact” on UK trade, in
comments backed by the Bank of England.
The OBR blamed Brexit for reducing overall trade
volumes and denting trading relationships with the bloc.
The gloomy economic news was compounded by London
losing its prized status as the biggest European stock market to Paris.
Brexiteers promised to strike trade deals around the
world, including with the potentially lucrative
US market.
But an agreement with Washington is unlikely anytime
soon.
Accords London has struck with other countries —
negotiated by Sunak’s short-lived predecessor Liz Truss as trade minister — are
also being lambasted.
Former environment minister George Eustice said last
week that the agreement he helped finalize with Australia almost a year ago was
“not actually a very good deal for the UK”.
“Overall, the truth of the matter is that the UK
gave away far too much, for far too little in return,” he told MPs in
parliament, citing liberalization of beef and sheep markets.
In Brussels, the
European Commission said: “Our
relationship with the UK is based on the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and
Cooperation Agreement.”
A temporary deal for food and agricultural products
was “the only Swiss-style deal or offer on the table as far as we’re
concerned”, a spokesman told reporters.
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