The Chancellor admitted that a no-deal Brexit would be “very, very bad” for the British, but said a deal that would “suck the lifeblood out of our economy” was a worse prospect. But the unexpected weak performance has plunged Britain into a political crisis and left May battling to unite both wings of the Conservative Party – those who want a so-called “hard Brexit” and those who did not want to leave the European Union in the first place. As Davis comes to the negotiations table without any position papers submitted on behalf of Theresa May’s government, he admits that negotiations will be considered “challenging times ahead”.
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May’s government said in a statement it was “confident it can achieve a bold and ambitious deal that will work in the interest of the whole U.K”. Mr Davis went into the talks announcing that he was in a “positive and constructive” frame of mind and that he was determined to build a “strong and special partnership” with the EU.
The talks expected to stretch for 16-18 months ahead of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union in 2019.
The EU appear to have claimed the first victory of the talks.
The talks also gave her the opportunity to try to reassure the other parties that a tie-up with the DUP would not compromise Britain’s impartiality in the delicate Northern Ireland peace process.
The most senior officials on either side will lead work on efforts to resolve the problem of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, a situation Mr Barnier acknowledged was “politically sensitive” at a time when the Tory government was seeking the support of the Democratic Unionist Party to prop up Mrs May’s minority government.
Both Davis and May remain committed to plans to crash out of the European Union if no deal is secured in two years, saying that “no deal is better than a bad deal”.
“The elections were awful for May but I don’t think the fundamental dynamics of the Brexit negotiations will change because of that”, Stefan Auer, associate professor in European Studies at the University of Hong Kong, told CNBC on Monday.
The Commission said: “The opening of negotiations at political level next week will focus on issues related to citizens’ rights, the financial settlement, the Northern Irish border and other separation issues, as part of the sequenced approach to the talks”.
Ms May has been under pressure since the election cost her her majority to consider “softer” Brexit options than the clean break she proposed from the EU single market and customs union.
As many political analysts have agreed, discontent in europhile Scotland and troubled Northern Ireland, which faces a new European Union border across the divided island, Brexit poses new threats to the integrity of the United Kingdom, which do not seem to visibly affect David Davis, the top British negotiator in Brussels, for whom the hard work “now begins” in his own words. “We keep hearing only what they don’t want, but we don’t have any picture of what future relations will look like”.
Only once the EU27 determine that “sufficient progress” has been made on these issues will talks be able to progress to a second phase, where the two sides will begin to scope out the future of their relationship.
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“No deal would be very, very bad outcome for Britain”, Hammond said Sunday.
