Читать книгу My Secret Brexit Diary - Michel Barnier - Страница 28

‘We have allies among the twenty-seven, and we must make use of them. Our enemy is the Commission, which wants to be forgiven for making Cameron lose. Many of the twenty-seven need us.’

I am told that these remarks, which have been reported to me, were made yesterday in private before a group of businessmen in London by UK Trade Minister Liam Fox. This Scottish MP, a former defence minister for David Cameron and a former candidate for the Conservative leadership, losing to Theresa May, is obviously at the forefront when it comes to imagining the future of trade relations between the UK and the EU. But first of all, Brexit must be achieved, and he is in favour of a fast-track agenda. That, however, is no reason to propagate such untruths.

So it was the Commission that lost David Cameron the election? This is to pass over in silence, just a little too quickly, the ‘new settlement’ agreed with him at the European Council on 18–19 February 2016, in the midst of the migrant crisis – a settlement that further strengthened the UK’s special status within the Union. In the end it wasn’t enough to prevent Brexit, but not for lack of trying…

It is also to forget that, if all European leaders voluntarily kept silent throughout the referendum campaign, they did so at the express request of the British Prime Minister. According to him, any intervention by ‘Brussels technocrats’ or foreign leaders would have been immediately exploited by the ‘Brexiteers’…

In any case, Liam Fox’s statement only strengthens my determination: we must secure and consolidate the unity of the twenty-seven as rapidly as possible.