Brexit Reality: “Paying Any Exit Fee Is Absurd”

The EU demands the UK pay Brexit costs of €60 billion.

I have commented for months on the absurdity of pay such demands.

And that reality is finally hitting home.

Collision Course

Please consider U.K. May Be on Course for Early Clash With EU Over Brexit Costs.

 U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s government looks set for an early clash with European Union leaders over the terms of Brexit as a report suggested it can leave the bloc without paying a financial settlement.

The Times newspaper on Saturday said government lawyers concluded there is no law or treaty to compel the U.K. to pay the bill EU officials have estimated at about 60 billion euros ($64 billion). That echoed a newly published finding of a House of Lords committee.

“Even though we consider that the U.K. will not be legally obliged to pay into the EU budget after Brexit, the issue will be a prominent factor in withdrawal negotiations,” Committee Chairwoman Kishwer Falkner said in a statement. “The government will have to set the financial and political costs of making such payments against potential gains from other elements of the negotiations.”

Haggling over how much Britain owes appears set to provide an early test of the formal negotiations, which May has pledged to invoke by the end of March. Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern became the first EU leader to put a value on the bill when he told Bloomberg last month that Britain should be charged about 60 billion euros.

That sparked anger from May’s Conservative Party, with former leader Iain Duncan Smith calling it “nonsense.” Trade Secretary Liam Fox has dismissed the idea of paying anything at all as “absurd.” 

Upper Hand

The EU nannycrats have long insisted they have the upper hand in negotiations. The reality is the UK is not obliged to do anything, including filing Article 50. The UK can tear up the treaty tomorrow and be done with it.