The European Union (EU) is demanding that any future British government pay financial compensation if it decides to abandon a possible agreement to “reset” relations after Brexit, which Brussels is negotiating with Keir Starmer’s Labour government, the Financial Times reported today, Monday.
According to a draft of the pact accessed by the newspaper, the European Commission has included a termination clause that would require the UK to pay a hefty restitution if it chooses to withdraw from a proposed veterinary agreement between London and Brussels, aimed at removing bureaucratic barriers to trade in food and beverages after Britain’s departure from the bloc.
EU diplomats have dubbed this provision the ‘Farage clause’, designed, they explained, to protect the EU from the risk that the leader of the right-wing populist Reform UK party, Nigel Farage, could become prime minister and fulfil his promise to reverse Starmer’s rapprochement with Brussels.
Farage, whose party leads the polls, confirmed to the Financial Times that he would ‘break’ any agreement signed with the EU-27 without handing over any money.
‘No Parliament can bind its successor, we will not honour any clause. If Starmer signs this, it is a democratic atrocity,’ he said. A Labour Party official pointed out that ‘it is common for agreements to include contingencies for termination and for these to work both ways,’ adding that detailed talks with Brussels on the terms of the agreement have not yet begun.
The so-called Farage clause states that if either party withdraws from the agreement, it must pay compensation that would include the costs of creating ‘infrastructure and equipment, initial recruitment and training necessary to establish border controls’. An EU diplomat described it as ‘a security provision to provide stability and deter Farage and company,’ explaining that Brussels aims to sign an agreement that will remain in place for the long term, beyond the current British legislature, which ends in 2029.
The UK and the EU agreed at a summit last May to relaunch their bilateral relationship by improving cooperation in various sectors, following the tensions created by Brexit, which was voted for in a referendum in 2016 and implemented in 2020.