Britain is wooing European politicians behind the scenes to win them over ahead of delicate Brexit negotiations next year.
Senior members of the Conservative party have stepped up contact with members of the European People’s Party, the centre-right bloc in the European Parliament, to discuss the UK’s negotiating position.
Greg Hands, trade minister, and Mark Field, vice-chairman, are leading the initiative, along with senior staff from Conservative party headquarters. They are focusing in particular on Germany’s Christian Democrats, the Spanish People’s Party and the French Republicans. Theresa May, the UK prime minister, is also hoping that her personal friendship with Bernard Cazeneuve, the new French prime minister who was her counterpart when she was home secretary, will help the charm offensive.
Winning support in the European Parliament will be vital because that chamber must approve British exit terms and any future trade deal. The EPP is the dominant group in the parliament and its support is required to pass any measure.
This may not be an easy task: the Conservative party pulled out of the EPP in 2009, fulfilling a pledge that David Cameron, the former prime minister, made during his leadership campaign when he was keen to win over Eurosceptics.
The consequence has been that in recent years Conservative contacts in the European Parliament have been more focused on members of their current grouping, the European Conservatives and Reformists — a more rightwing group that includes Poland’s Law and Justice party and the Danish People’s Party.
Now British Conservatives are trying to build bridges with the EPP once more.
It may not be easy. One German member of the EPP questioned the initiative. “In difficult times, it is always good to keep open as many lines of communication as possible,” said Markus Ferber, MEP in the Bavarian sister party of Ms Merkel’s CDU. “However, what we do not want to see is that the official Brexit negotiations are undermined by side-deals that are struck in backrooms.”
Nevertheless members of the EPP confirmed they had been in informal discussions since the Brexit vote with figures such as Mr Hands and Mr Field.
Last week Mr Field was photographed emerging from the Brexit department in Downing Street alongside an assistant who was carrying a handwritten memo that appeared to set out details of the government’s strategy. Although Number 10 said the document did not reflect the government’s position, the FT understands the notes were taken during a briefing for Mr Field before he travelled to meet European politicians.
The British are starting to reach out. They’re reaching out to MEPs for obvious reasons . . . That’s common sense, a sensible thing to do for the British
The Tories’ key EU contacts are members of the EPP’s internal advisory group on Brexit, which is chaired by David McAllister, a leading MEP in Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and a former prime minister of Lower Saxony. “The British are starting to reach out. They’re reaching out to MEPs for obvious reasons, because [European] Commission and Council officials will be talking to them,” Mr McAllister said. “That’s common sense, a sensible thing to do for the British.”
He added: “I travel to the UK at least once a month, trying to speak with as many British politicians as possible. Our position is obvious: that the ball is in the British court. We’re really closely following the British debate trying to figure out what their position is. They’ve still got a long way to go.”
Mr Field and Mr Hands are this week attending the CDU’s annual conference in Essen. Last month Mr Hands attended a meeting in Bavaria of the CDU’s sister party, the CSU.
Speaking from the Essen conference, Mr Hands told the FT that his efforts were “part of a long-term relationship between two sister parties, which has been made more immediate by Brexit”.
“We want to continue to have good relations with the German government and with the CDU and CSU in particular,” he said.
Another Conservative politician involved in the outreach efforts said the aim was “to keep lines of communication open prior to the triggering of Article 50”.
EPP members said they were willing participants in informal engagements with Conservative figures because the bloc has no UK members, depriving it of a “British voice” and a direct line into London. The UK advisory group in the EPP, set up several months ago, draws its membership from the ranks of German, Dutch, Irish, Polish and Italian MEPs in the bloc.
The behind-the-scenes contacts form part of a wider bid by Mrs May to lay the groundwork for Brexit negotiations by stepping up her European communications network. Her media team will shortly begin to hold regular weekly briefings for foreign press representatives in London.
The prime minister’s advisers have warned her that many EU capitals get their information from British newspapers, whose stories are often repeated by local outlets. The Eurosceptic tone of some of the British press has often coloured the way the UK is seen in European capitals — not least because of an assumption in some quarters that coverage is often guided by Number 10.
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