EU must compromise, UK not afraid of no deal: Brexit secretary

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The UK's Brexit secretary on Monday gave a combative speech at the Conservative Party conference in central England, where he told the audience the EU had to get serious if it wanted a future deal and said the British government was not afraid of a no-deal scenario.

Speaking at the event in Birmingham, Dominic Raab remarked that the EU's approach to the Brexit negotiations had so far shown a lack of compromise and placed the onus on cracking a future deal firmly on Brussels, Efe news reported.

"If the EU want a deal, they need to get serious and they need to do it now," the Member of Parliament for Thames Ditton, who took over from David Davis in the Cabinet when the latter resigned in protest of Prime Minister Theresa May's Chequers Brexit plan in July, told the crowd.

He said May had shown nothing but respect for the EU, but all she had received in turn were "jibes" from the bloc's leaders.

Raab also warned that the UK would not rule out a no-deal scenario if Brussels failed to compromise.

"Some people say that no-deal is unthinkable. Wrong, what is unthinkable is that this government, or any British government, could be bullied by the threat of some kind of economic embargo, into signing a one-sided deal against our country's interests," Raab said.

He said any short-term disruptions arising from such an exit from the bloc would be overcome.

Relations across the London-Brussels Brexit negotiating table have soured in recent weeks due to a lack of consensus on topics such as how to maintain a soft border between the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, and Northern Ireland, a UK territory.

There has also been a growing number of calls in the UK for a re-run of the Brexit vote, a so-called People's Vote. Raab slammed the idea in Birmingham and denounced at undemocratic: "Honestly, it would be pathetic if it wasn't so dangerous."

The UK is due to leave the EU in March 2019.

--IANS

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