Dominic Raab lashed out at “hair-raising scare stories” about a no deal Brexit at a press conference with Michel Barnier on Tuesday, as the EU’s chief negotiator warned that Brussels would not accept the blame for failure to strike an agreement.
Britain’s new Brexit Secretary and Mr Barnier vowed to “negotiate continuously” to beat the looming deadline for Britain to leave the bloc, rather than rely on the now traditional rounds of negotiation.
If the UK and the Brussels cannot finalise a Brexit deal before 29 March 2019, Britain will crash out of the EU without a deal, which Mr Barnier warned would be “the most costly form of Brexit”. “We don’t want this option,” he added.
"To be very frank I do see a blame game starting against the EU in case of a no deal,” Mr Barnier told reporters at the European Commission in Brussels, as he warned it was unlikely there would be a deal before November.
“The EU will not be impressed by a blame game and everyone should understand that."
Britain’s new Brexit Secretary said that with “ambition, pragmatism and energy” a deal could be struck in time but he dismissed fears that failure could result in shortages of supplies such as medicines.
“These hair-raising scare stories [of chaotic Brexit] are very far from the truth," he said before vowing to address the concerns in more detail in a speech on Thursday, when the government plans to publish 84 notices to help various sectors prepare for no deal on Thursday.
He added, “our actions speak louder than words” as the two men revealed they would meet again next week in Brussels in a bid to overcome some of the sticking points preventing a deal.
Chief among them remains how to avoid the return of a hard border on the island of Ireland. Mr Barnier once again called on Britain to “dedramatize” the issue amid fears the EU plans to create a border between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland.
Mr Barnier said he had no intention of shifting the EU’s position in the negotiations, though Brexit-supporting politicians has claimed his repeated refusals of Theresa May’s proposals are pushing the UK towards a crash-out. Mr Barnier said that it was Britain which was leaving the EU and not the other way around. "The principles of the EU in these negotiations are well known and have been consistent for the last two years," he said, "We can find common ground based on the EU principles and on the other end the choices made by the UK. "
But Mr Barnier, who said negotiations were entering the final stage, said that the EU wanted an ambitious partnership with the UK that had “no precedent”.
Mr Raab said: “I agree with Michel that we need to keep, as we climb the mountain, our eyes on the summit and accentuate the positives, and there are many positive areas where we agree, but of course we’ve got to close down those areas of disagreement.
“I’m out here seeing Michel again, I shall be returning next week, we’re going to be picking up the intensity of negotiations, we agree on that.
"But of course the responsible thing for any government to do, and indeed on the EU side to do, is to make sure that we’re prepared for all eventualties.”
In a later BBC interview, Mr Raab vowed Britain would move swiftly to secure the rights of EU citizens living in the UK if there was a no deal Brexit.
Mr Raab’s predecessor David Davis did not visit Brussels at all for the first three months of this year. In stark contrast, Mr Raab has met EU officials three times in just a month and will meet Mr Barnier again next week.
Asked if he missed Mr Davis, who resigned in protest at the UK White Paper on customs, Mr Barnier said, “I am very happy to be working with Dominic”.
Mr Raab added swiftly, "I am very happy to be working with Michel".
Last week the UK and EU held "technical talks" on the terms of the UK’s departure from the bloc, including Ireland and the future trading relationship. Talks will continue on Wednesday.
Progress has so far been slow, leading Mr Barnier to signal that his October deadline to finalise the Brexit agreement, which would give national governments and the European Parliament five months to ratify the deal, was slipping.
“I’m not going to say October. A Few days here or there, but certainly not later than the beginning of November," the EU’s chief negotiator said before warning that some parts of a British white paper on the future relationship were incompatible with the red lines he had been given by the EU-27.