Jeremy Corbyn has again refused to say how much Labour would offer the European Union for the so-called Brexit “divorce” bill to unlock trade talks.
The Labour leader also suggested the party would accept abiding by EU standards to ensure tariff-free trade.
He also indicated that a transition period after the UK leaves the EU in March 2019 would make a financial settlement “less of an obstacle”.
Mr Corbyn told the Press Association: “We would have to agree that any goods we import would be at least of the quality required by European trade rules as they are at the moment, if not better.
“I would be happy to agree that.
“On the so-called divorce bill, it’s quite clear that there are EU programmes that have been funded across all member states that must continue through to their fruition and indeed some of those programmes are in Britain.
“And so we’re saying quite clearly there is an obligation to pay and support those continuing ones.
“And we would continue to do that and so there is a payment that would have to continue to be made.
“And since we’ve argued for, it seems successfully, a transition period, then that becomes less of an immediate obstacle.
“The discussions we’ve had with colleagues in Brussels has shown that there is an appetite to come to that sort of agreement.
“Can I put a figure on it? No.”
He went on: “Hopefully it (the financial settlement) could be agreed fairly quickly but there’s going to be a transition period anyway and clearly during the transition period we would have access to the market under existing terms and at the same time those programmes will carry on.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel