Michel Barnier reveals four conditions for UK rejoining EU – including £5bn bombshell | Politics | News
Britain cannot rejoin the European Union without having freedom of movement between the UK and the EU, Brussels’ former chief Brexit negotiator has warned. Michel Barnier warned the UK there will be “no cherry picking” for the UK.
When asked on BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg whether Britain could rejoin the single market without having unlimited immigration backwards and forwards, Michel Barnier said: “There is no cherry picking. There will be no possibility to have one freedom and not the other.
“The four freedoms (of goods, movement of people, services and capital) are clearly the four conditions to be inside the single market.”
He said there would be no fee simply to rejoin, but added: “There will be the usual contribution of any member state to the European budget.”
Mr Barnier said he thinks the £5 billion annual rebate Margaret Thatcher had negotiated on paying 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.
They will be focused on bringing down post-Brexit trade barriers on food and farming, as well as 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.
But he has suggested he wants to deepen ties with Europe further in the aftermath of the summit.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has acknowledged there will be “trade-offs” for Britain as it seeks to get closer to the EU again.
She was asked by Ms Kuenssberg whether it was true there would be a 150,000 cap on the number of Europeans who could come to Britain under a youth mobility scheme, and whether this would be acceptable to her constituents.
Mrs 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.”
Ms 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.”