May warns of EU ganging up on Britain

The British prime minister at first dismissed as 'Brussels gossip' reports of a disastrous working dinner with Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission. Then on Tuesday, as she launched her bid to keep her job as premier, Theresa May conceded that the other 27 EU countries were ganging up on Britain in the Brexit negotiations

Britain's prime minister Theresa May greets European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker outside 10 Downing Street in London on April 4, 2017. John Stillwell / PA via AP

DUBLIN // It was not an auspicious start to an election campaign. As she launched her bid to keep her job as Britain’s prime minister, Theresa May had to rebut accusations that her government is blundering through Brexit.

She at first dismissed as “Brussels gossip” reports of a disastrous working dinner with Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission. Then on Tuesday, the prime minister conceded that the other 27 EU countries were ganging up on Britain in the Brexit negotiations. “Across the table from us sit 27 European member states who are united in their determination to do a deal that works for them,” she said as she campaigned in south-west England.

Details of the prime minister's dinner with Mr Juncker at her Downing Street residence were published on Sunday in the German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, and spread rapidly through the British media. According to that report, Mr Juncker had called Mrs May "deluded" about her aspirations from Brexit talks, saying, "I'm leaving Downing Street 10 times more sceptical than I was before."

In Britain, The Sunday Times newspaper also reported that in a telephone call the morning after the dinner, Mr Juncker told German chancellor Angela Merkel, "It went very badly … [Mrs May] is in a different galaxy."

The same morning, Mrs Merkel made a tough speech on Brexit, sharply outlining what the EU expected. “I have to put it in such clear terms because unfortunately I have the feeling that some in Britain still have illusions. But [having these illusions] would be a waste of time.”

The details from the dinner are thought to have been leaked to the media by sources within the EU.

One of the most contentious issues discussed was the EU’s insistence that the UK pay roughly £51 billion (Dh242bn) to meet various obligations. Mrs May told Mr Juncker that the UK did not, under the law, have to pay the EU anything at all. Mr Juncker is said to have replied, “The EU is not a golf club.”

On Monday, Mrs May insisted the dinner had been cordial. “Just look at what the European Commission themselves said immediately after the dinner took place, which was that the talks had been constructive,” she said.

But by the next day, she was no longer glossing over the “one versus 27” predicament now facing Britain. Instead, she turned it into a rallying call to the voters.

“The negotiations ahead will be tough,” she said. “We need that same unity of purpose here at home to ensure we can get a deal that works in Britain’s national interest too.”

Brexit negotiations between the UK and the EU are expected to begin in June.

At the dinner, the British team also argued that the question of migrants — the 3 million EU citizens living in the UK and one million British citizens living in the EU — could be resolved by the end of June.

In response, Mr Juncker pulled out two volumes of papers from his bag — the treaty of Croatia’s accession to the EU and the EU’s free-trade deal with Canada — and used them to illustrate how complex the Brexit divorce is likely to be. “I think you underestimate this, Theresa,” he is reported to have told Mrs May.

The prospects of any free-trade deal between the UK and the EU also seemed to recede, as Mr Juncker threatened that no such deal would be granted if the UK did not pay its bills. The UK, he said, would be treated in trade as a “third country” — one that lies outside the EU but also outside the customs union, which includes Turkey and other nations.

In her push for a successful Brexit — one with a free-trade deal — Mrs May cannot afford to squander time in ruining and rebuilding relations with, or getting boxed in by the EU.

According to the regulations governing any country leaving the EU, negotiations can only last two years, said Dr Tim Oliver, a political scientist at the London School of Economics. Beyond that, every one of the EU’s 27 member states must vote unanimously if negotiations are to be extended.

“If no agreement is reached within the two years, then the UK leaves without an agreement,” Dr Oliver said.