'Time running out to strike good Brexit deal'

The Confederation of British Industry on Sunday released a draft of a keynote speech Director General Carolyn Fairbairn is to make on Monday at the University of Warwick in Central England, Xinhua news agency reported. Fairbairn says 2018 must be the year of hard choices, based on evidence not ideology, in a message targeted at politicians negotiating Britain’s departure from the European Union. Fairbairn will call for a status quo, jobs-first transition deal to be iled down in the next 70 days to remove the cliff edge for firms.

“A united UK view is needed by April - allowing talks to begin that month and umbiguous heads of terms agreed with the EU by October,” she says.

Urging rapid agreement on the shape of a new deal, the leader of Britain’s biggest business organisations suggests neither the Cada nor Norway models have with the EU represent the best solution for business or for Britain. The Cada model, she says, “is an ocean away from what we need. We can’t afford higher barriers to trade, and nor can the EU,” adding “the Cada-deal rules of origin are as long as The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and a lot less fun to read.” To achieve a good Brexit both sets of negotiators must revisit red lines, putting economics before politics to protect jobs and communities on both sides of the Channel, her message continues.

Fairbairn calls for a comprehensive customs union between the UK and the EU as a “practical, real-world answer” that goes a long way towards solving some of the complex issues, including the Irish border question, raised by the UK’s exit from the EU. (IANS)