Chancellor Philip Hammond has been voicing his opinions about Brexit and a trade agreement with the EU on “The Andrew Marr Show” as Prime Minister Theresa May’s finger itches the trigger on Article 50, which she can’t wait to put into effect and get us out of the European Union. Marr questioned Hammond on whether or not the bills we have from Brexit that we owe to the EU would be paid, since the House of Lords seemed incredibly giddy about the fact that if there’s no trade deal in the EU leave agreement, we could just walk off and not pay a penny and it would be totally legal.
‘We are a nation that honours its obligations’
While not actually saying the words “We will pay the Brexit bills we owe to the EU,” Hammond did suggest that this was the case. “Obviously, this is a piece of negotiating strategy that we are seeing in Brussels,” he said. Hammond says that Britain is “a nation that honours its obligations” and promised that if there are any unpaid bills on our tab, “we will obviously deal with them in the proper way.”
“Dealing with them in the proper way” suggests paying them, but since Hammond hasn’t actually promised it, that leaves this a bit of a dubious grey area. He also said that Britain is “a nation which abides by its international obligations” and says that “we always have done, we always will do, and everybody can be confident about that.” The exit bill is expected to cost €60 billion (£52 billion), but Europe’s number one Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier says this figure is “hugely speculative.”
