‘You laughed it off!’ Marr SLAMS Davis as Brexit Secretary confirms MASSIVE divorce bill
DAVID Davis has faced a furious backlash from Andrew Marr after the Brexit Secretary confirmed the EU divorce bill will cost the UK between £35billion and £39billion.
Andrew Marr said the Brexit Minister had previously rolled his eyes when a figure of up to £40billion was suggested for the Brexit divorce bill.
Mr Davis confirmed the amount during the Andrew Marr Show and said it was only decided upon “about a week ago”.
Mr Davis said: “The Treasury’s estimate is something like £35 to £39 billion but it’s very complex. There are lots of plays in it.
Mr Marr hit back and said: “Again, I gave you that figure not that long ago and you rolled your eyes and you shook your head and you laughed and you said ‘no, no, no, absolutely not - that’s just a guess’.
BBC
I gave you that figure not that long ago and you rolled your eyes
“If £40billion was a guess, it was a bloody good guess.”
Mr Davis said: “If you want to be precise about what I said and you want precision I said that sounds sort of made up. And it was.
“The reason it was sort of made up was because we were at that stage going through the line by line analysis. Nobody at that point knew what the outcome would be. We were going through line by line.”
Mr Marr quizzed the Brexit Secretary about when he knew the deal was finalisted – and Mr Davis said said he only knew “about a week ago”.
He said: “It was quite recently because we didn’t complete the line by line analysis until we went into the final round of negotiations.
But Mr Davis confirmed that if Britain leaves the European Union with no deal then Britain “won’t be paying money”.
The Prime Minister had to back down to the EU on a number of issues, including raising the divorce deal and allowing family members of migrants to move to Britain, which has been criticised by staunch Brexiteers.
Prominent Leave campaigner Nigel Farage hit out at the EU over its demands on the Brexit divorce bill. He said they originally suggested a figure of up to €100 billion to “frighten” the British.
Mr Farage told Sky News: “That’s how the EU have done this – put out a ridiculous figure, frighten the British, get Theresa May to promise 20 in Florence, and up we go.
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“We do not need to be paying anything like this sum of money.
“The only reason they want this exorbitant sum is because they have refused to cut any of their future spending programmes despite the fact the United Kingdom is leaving. We should not be paying that sum of money.”
