Theresa May was pitched into a new clash with Brussels today about handing European judges a permanent say over UK laws after Brexit.
A draft withdrawal agreement due from the 27 other EU states tomorrow will name the European Court of Justice (ECJ) as the ultimate arbiter of treaty disputes after Britain leaves the bloc, according to reports from Brussels.
Boris Johnson, however, said it would be incompatible with the result of the 2016 referendum for the court to have any long-term sway over domestic affairs.
The reported legal text would make European judges, who sit in Luxembourg and are appointed by EU states, the referees whenever Britain or the EU is accused of breaking a treaty commitment.
According to the Financial Times, the text will say the UK should be subject to the court’s rulings indefinitely.
Such a plan would collide with Mrs May’s red line that Britain must break free from the ECJ altogether once the implementation period after Brexit expires in around December 2020.
Her spokesman said her position was clear on the ECJ and that No 10 would await the EU paper tomorrow before responding. The dispute came as:
Britain’s former top trade official today launched a riposte to Brexiteers campaigning to quit Europe’s trade bloc, saying they were swapping a three-course feast for “a packet of crisps”.
Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator, said the UK’s plan for ambitious managed divergence agreed by ministers at Chequers last week was “unacceptable”.
Sir Martin Donnelly, the former permanent secretary to Mr Fox’s department, joined the growing row over Mrs May’s decision to leave the customs union. He echoed forecasts backed by the Treasury that economic growth will slow to a crawl if the UK leaves the customs union and the single market.
In a speech tonight he will say: For the UK to give up existing access … is rather like rejecting a three-course meal now in favour of the promise of a packet of crisps later.
Europe, Sir Martin said, would never allow the same trade access unless the UK obeyed the same rules. Mocking Mrs May’s claims that she could secure frictionless trade anyway, he said: That’s something for a fairy godmother.
Mr Johnson, however, told Today there was an “insatiable” market for UK services outside the EU. He said: You can’t suck and blow at once… we’re going to have to come out of the customs union to be able to do free trade deals.
Mr Verhofstadt sniped: The best way to be independent and not a colony is to be in the European Union.
Tory supporters of the customs union were buoyed by Jeremy Corbyn’s speech backing it yesterday, which opens the way for Brexiteers to be outvoted in the Commons.
Mrs May is expected to set out the plan for ambitious managed divergence agreed by her inner Brexit war cabinet at Chequers last week, and set to be approved by the full Cabinet at a special meeting on Thursday.
It has been branded pure illusion by European Council president Donald Tusk.