#Brexit: 'The Brexit deal we want is a deal that would be good for both the EU and the UK'

Just before the start of today's (20 October) European Summit, we spoke to Syed Kamall MEP (pictured), British Conservative and Leader of the European Parliament's European Conservatives and Reformists Group.

When asked what Prime Minister May had to say to fellow prime ministers, Syed Kamall MEP said that many of the the politicians will have had their briefings, but they will want to hear what the prime minister herself has to say. Asked if she would lay out the plan for a ‘hard Brexit’, he said he didn’t like these definitions, and added that the Brexit deal the UK wants "is a deal that would be in favour of both the EU and the UK". He said: “Britain is still geographically in Europe and we will continue to trade with each other, we don’t want to see a poor EU and a rich UK, or the other way round, we want both to be prosperous."

Asked by a Spanish journalist about some of the comments at the Conservative Party Conference, Kamall said that some of the statements went too far and that at Party Conference politicians are speaking to their home audience. On Amber Rudd's proposal for companies to list their foreign workers Kamall said that Party members exerted pressure, saying Party members made it clear that they did not agree with Rudd and that they wanted to maintain an open Britain.

CETA for the UK?

Kamall was strongly supportive of the CETA trade agreement between Canada in the EU, which is one of the main subjects of the summit. The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is a freshly negotiated EU-Canada treaty. Once applied, it will offer EU firms more and better business opportunities in Canada and support jobs in Europe. Kamall felt that the benefits of the agreement needed to be explained more clearly to the public.

Asked if he thought the UK would seek a CETA type agreement with the EU, Kamall said that when we looked at the two main reasons the British voted for sovereignty one was sovereignty, for others it was migration and they wanted the ability to control migration. Given that migration was such a big issue, he said that we cannot have a Norway type agreement as that would mean signing up to freedom of movement. However, he said that there would still be movement of people from the EU to the UK, but that it would be controlled.

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