Merkel ally says Brexit talks have raised UK support for second referendum - Guardian

Merkel ally says Brexit talks have raised UK support for second referendum

Manfred Weber, who heads largest party in European parliament, said UK was realising Brexit means losing many things and gaining nothing

Manfred Weber

Manfred Weber said recent statements by David Davis about the Brexit talks were ‘not helpful’.

Daniel Boffey in Brussels

Wednesday 13 December 2017

A key ally of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has claimed that a growing awareness of the damaging terms of a future Brexit deal has led to a rise in support in the UK for a second referendum on EU membership.

Manfred Weber, the leader of the largest party in the European parliament, said a row over the ineligibility of Britain’s cities in the European capital of culture competition was just the latest example of the UK’s losses hitting home.

“An opinion poll showed 50% of the British people are in favour of a new referendum,” Weber, who leads the centre-right European People’s party, told MEPs in Strasbourg. “The British people realise that Brexit means losing many things, but not gaining anything.”

The German MEP suggested that the latest twist in the Brexit negotiations showed that, unlike for previous generations, when Ireland was dictated to by the UK, the Republic “is much more stronger because it belongs to the European Union”.

On Tuesday, the UK’s Brexit secretary, David Davis, called the European parliament’s Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, to reassure the former Belgian prime minister that British promises on the opening issues of citizens rights, the financial settlement and the Irish border could be depended upon.

His earlier suggestion that the concessions made by the UK in a joint agreement struck last week with the European commission to move the talks on was merely a “statement of intent” caused uproar in Brussels and Dublin.

Verhofstadt told the European parliament: “Yesterday, I spoke to [Davis] on the phone and he assured me that it is absolutely not his intention nor that of the British government to backtrack on their commitments.

“I take note of this and I think that the best way to assure this, is that today, as we mention in our resolution, we immediately transpose all the commitments of the report into the legal text of the withdrawal agreement.”

Weber said on Wednesday: “We Europeans have secured the Irish interests in the negotiations in the last weeks … I have to say that the last statements from David Davis about what the outcome means now practically was not helpful to secure this trust building approach. We ask the British prime minister to clarify [by] Thursday that the outcome of the first phase is binding for both sides.”

The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, told MEPs he was confident the UK would “rapidly” turn the agreement into a legal document.

“We will not accept any going back on this joint report,” he said. “This progress has been agreed and will be rapidly translated into a withdrawal accord that is legally binding in all three areas and on some others that remain to be negotiated.”

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The European parliament is due to vote on Wednesday on a motion urging EU leaders to allow the next phase of EU negotiations to start, albeit with a line criticising Davis.

Barnier said many more steps were required to secure an orderly withdrawal. “We are not at the end of the road, neither regarding citizens’ rights nor for the other subjects of the orderly withdrawal. We remain vigilant,” he said.

The next phase of talks, he said, would focus on a “short and defined” transition period and initial discussions on a future relationship, which he stressed would not erode the EU single market and its four freedoms, including free movement of people.