Liz Truss, the chief secretary to The Treasury claims that we won't pay the divorce bill unless we get a favourable trade deal (HERE). I fear she is labouring under a big misapprehension. If the EU permit the money to be linked to a "favourable" trade deal it will be like handing the UK a loaded pistol so we can threaten the EU whenever the trade talks hit a stumbling block - as they certainly will.
It would be completely insane on the part of the EU and as we have seen so far they are very far from that. In fact they have played us off the pitch in the negotiations. Ministers are fond of saying nothing is agreed until everything is agreed but this refers to each separate negotiation and the divorce bill will be wrapped up in a withdrawal agreement years before any trade deal is signed.
Asked about the rumoured £50 billion divorce bill, Ms Truss, told MPs on Wednesday it was “not in the national interest to comment on speculation” about a deal, but insisted that “whatever happens, we are not going to be paying anything like what we would have been as an EU member”.
Unfortunately, we won't be earning anything like what we would have been as an EU member - but she doesn't seem to realise that. What a pity, for all of us.
Both sides are playing this supposed agreement down but Barnier has indicated he hopes to announce a deal on the divorce bill within days (HERE) and it would be a great surprise to me if it was tied to any future trade agreement since Barnier explicitly ruled this out in September (HERE). What he said was there would be no “mixing up” of what he termed Britain’s “historic debts” to the bloc and subsequent negotiations on a future EU-UK trade deal. David Davis at the same time told us any deal on the bill was "contingent" on getting a future trade deal. I think we can see who has won that battle and it's not Davis.
