WATCH David Davis: We want a Canada plus, plus, plus trade deal with the EU after Brexit
3 min read
David Davis today said the Government wants a “Canada plus, plus, plus” trade deal with the EU after Brexit.
The Brexit Secretary said Britain would seek a “bespoke outcome” featuring the best bits of all the deals the bloc has made with other nations around the globe.
He also said the landmark exit deal Theresa May made with Brussels just two days ago has “dramatically” reduced the chance of the UK crashing out without a future trade arrangement.
On Friday morning the EU agreed ‘sufficient progress’ had been made in the first phase of talks, allowing negotiations to move onto the two-year transition and the future trade relationship.
The Cabinet will meet tomorrow to discuss the agreement, while the Brexit war Cabinet will convene the following week to hammer out its vision for the so-called ‘end state’.
Mr Davis said the team wanted an “overarching free trade deal” which included financial services - which did not feature in the EU-Canada agreement which took seven years to negotiate.
He added that he wanted extra specific arrangements in a number of other sectors including aviation and nuclear.
“Canada plus, plus, plus would be one way of putting it,” Mr Davis told the Andrew Marr show this morning.
He added: “What we want is a bespoke outcome. We will probably start with the best of Canada and the best of Japan and the best of South Korea and then add to that the bits that are missing, which is the services.”
Mr Davis argued the UK could hammer out a deal in about a year because it begins from a state of regulatory similarity with the EU.
But he accepted it would have been “difficult” to secure an agreement in such a short space of time if the exit issues had not been ironed out this week.
“So the odds - as it were - against a [World Trade Organisation] or no deal outcome have dropped dramatically,” he noted.
Elsewhere, he confirmed reports that the so-called Brexit divorce bill would be in the region of £35-39bn.
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