LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is legally bound to pay its up to 39 billion pound ($52 billion) divorce bill to the European Union before a detailed future trade deal is agreed, a minister said on Wednesday, raising the prospect of it losing leverage in talks.
Prime Minister Theresa May has long said that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” in the Brexit talks, suggesting that an accord on future ties must be settled before the divorce in March next year.
Stopping payments to the EU was one of the main reasons behind the campaign for Britain to leave the bloc, and Brexit campaigners have said they will not support the governments plans unless they offer value for money.
While the government says it will present to parliament a detailed agreement on future ties well before the Brexit date, Suella Braverman, a Brexit minister, said at a meeting with lawmakers there was no legal link between the divorce bill and a deal on future trading arrangements with the bloc.
Rather, there is only “a duty of good faith”, she said.
“In the withdrawal agreement, there is agreed a duty of good faith … which obliges both parties to cooperate in a way which means we are working constructively towards a future framework, which is mutually beneficial,” she told a parliamentary committee on Brexit.
“The duty of good faith should not be ignored in this context. It is more than just words and I think it does apply to the attitude in the way in which an agreement on the future framework will be struck.”
She also said if the terms of any future trade deal did not meet British demands, then London could renegotiate its terms.
Several lawmakers said parliament could be left voting on a financial deal worth 35-39 billion pounds in the withdrawal agreement due later this year without having legal certainty over what the future relationship would look like.
A spokesman for May said: “We have been absolutely clear that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Were clear that we intend to agree the future framework at the same time as the withdrawal agreement.”
“Parliament will vote on the withdrawal agreement at the same time as the terms of our future relationship with the EU.”
Reporting by Andrew MacAskill and Elizabeth Piper; editing by Stephen Addison
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