The Yorkshire Post says: High price for Brexit '˜divorce'. Progress needed on trade talks

AFTER months of intransigence it is the Government that has blinked first after offering to increase its so-called 'divorce bill' to the EU.
How much money should Britain pay as part of the Brexit 'divorce bill'?How much money should Britain pay as part of the Brexit 'divorce bill'?
How much money should Britain pay as part of the Brexit 'divorce bill'?

Theresa May had hoped that her Florence speech in September, when she reiterated her promise to honour the UK’s budget commitments and urged her European counterparts to help deliver a creative trading agreement,

would get the ball rolling. However, while her conciliatory tone was welcomed in Brussels, it failed to have the desired effect.

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The message in recent weeks from both the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier and the EU Council President Donald Tusk was there could be no trade talks until sufficient progress had been made on the divorce bill, the rights of EU citizens in the UK after Brexit and the vexed question of the Irish border.

This has left Mrs May caught between a rock and a hard place, faced with the EU’s unyielding stance on one side and pressure from her own voluble Tory backbenchers on the other.

And while an increase in the UK’s Brexit bill offer is progress of sorts, it does not immediately open the door for trade talks. The devil, as always, is in the detail. This will be paid for by British taxpayers and, as such, the public has a right to know what it is paying for.

The Prime Minister and the Government’s team of negotiators are likely to face a great deal of opprobrium from Brexiteers who will say this is not what they voted for in last year’s bitterly divisive referendum and does not fit with the promises made by prominent Leave campaigners, like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.

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What matters now, however, is that the Government can begin the arduous task of forging a new trade relationship with EU member states. It will require compromise from the bureaucrats in Brussels otherwise we run the risk of further stalemate – and that benefits neither side.