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UK Ambassador Noble on Brexit:Very confident we won't face problems that a no-deal would bring for us

Ambassador of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Bucharest Andrew Noble, spoke for AGERPRES, about the Brexit process and confessed he is confident in a deal, and also in a 'complex and ambitious' post-Brexit relationship between the European Union and the UK.

"I'm very confident that the negotiations that are taking place will result in the Prime Minister being able to put a deal to the House of Commons that he endorses, that the EU endorses, and that we will not face the problems that a no-deal would bring for us," the diplomat says.

He also spoke about the way in which he has to present the Brexit process to his dialogue partners in Bucharest.

"The job for people like me is actually to be talking to government to explain what's behind that. At the moment, there's an awful lot of politics around, but politics isn't the same as government policy and government action. And so, all of the newspaper coverage, and the television coverage in the UK is about the politics," said the UK ambassador.

AGERPRES: Your Excellency, the UK Embassy in Bucharest was very active when it comes to the Romanian community living in the UK, and we already have 189,000 Romanians that signed up for the post-Brexit scheme. Could you make a profile of the Romanian community living in the UK and working in the UK? Do you have information about that? How do they look and what do they fear, first of all, when it comes to Brexit?

Andrew Noble: Well, I think they're very diverse and we don't know exactly how many there are, because we're the sort of country that doesn't maintain police records of that - where people live. People are often surprised that there is no identity card in the UK. That's the sort of place we are. So we don't have a very fixed idea. It's clear that they are in every sector of the economy. I've said recently, we have 1,000 Romanian academics, either researchers or professors at universities. We've got 10,000 students, we've got some of the highest business representatives in the country as Romanians by origin. So I think we've got a very wide spread. There are clearly a lot of people who are in unskilled manual labour and they are performing an essential role in the UK. My favourite hotel receptionist is Romanian, who greets me in Romanian, when I go to the hotel I usually use. And I know from business visitors that Romanian workers are really very highly praised. Their work ethic is top-level and the quality of the work that they do. So, very diverse, lots of them we're very keen to keep them. We're very happy that so many of them have already applied for the settled or pre-settled status scheme.

AGERPRES: There is some kind of fear that the settled scheme will favour white-collar jobs more than blue-collar jobs. Is there an official response, an official British response to that? Is Britain cherry-picking people in terms of choosing the highly-qualified people to stay in Britain? Is there an official British response to that?

Andrew Noble: There is a big official answer. The big official answer is that qualification for settled or pre-settled status does not depend on employment. It isn't about whether you are employed or not, it is whether you have been in the UK prior to Brexit date, so you can apply in the scheme using your national insurance number. Because we have very online government services it makes it very easy. You can put your national insurance number and everything else goes very quickly. If you haven't got a national insurance number, that is not a problem. All you need to be able to demonstrate is that you have lived in the country and that has been, or you intended it to become your principal residence. So if the 200,000 who haven't yet applied are doing so because of a concern about their employment status, employment status is irrelevant to the scheme.

AGERPRES: The discussions in the news after the Brexit vote - regarding the situation after the Brexit vote, they were charged with words such as ?populism'. Do you think that the British community, the British people developed some kind of antibodies against populism during this time? Since the Brexit vote, because there have been a lot of news labelled as populist, a lot of discourses labelled as populist ...

Andrew Noble: I'm at risk at the moment, with a very interesting question, actually commenting on the politics of the country whereas, I'm actually a Government servant and we focus on what Government is actually doing. But I will give you a little answer which I think holds true for all countries and all political circumstances, that politics on day one influences how day two is, and day two is subtly different from day one and, obviously, a lot of people would say that political conditions in any polity are cyclical. So, I think the UK is cyclical in that respect. I think that you would see things today that did not apply in 2015, you can see reactions to events. Newton was a Brit, every action has a reaction, and I think it's true in politics as well.

AGERPRES: Do you think there's a rift between Brexiters and non-Brexiters in the UK, because there was fear about this rift in the British society between people who are pro-Brexit and who are against Brexit and do you think Britain will solve this in a way?

Andrew Noble: I think it's a bit dangerous to use language like rift. I think there are differences of view. I think how those differences of view will be metabolized over time - actually, we need to see how it happens. Rift implies irreconcilable can never change. I think the facts of life in the UK, now whilst we are in the EU, when in the future we will be outside, I think those facts of life will influence very much how people view those political questions. But I think we have one of our stories about ourselves as Brits is that we actually do very well in adversity, that we have an intrinsic sense of innovation and to finding solutions to the most difficult of circumstances. That's another reason why I think words like rift which imply permanence, depth and impossibility of bridging the gap, I think are wrong. Difference of view might be too little but, you know, I'm a cautious diplomat.

AGERPRES: Yesterday at the opening at the university, you told political science students that Great Britain could be kind of a case study during this time - the pre-Brexit moment. Are there certain aspects that were hard for you to discuss with Romanian officials - or not discuss, but explain to Romanian officials - when it comes to Brexit? Were there difficulties in talking about this ongoing process?

Andrew Noble: I don't think so, really. I've had a lot of very good discussions, with the Government, with the people outside Government, with media, with businesspeople. I think in a way the biggest difficulty, and it's true for every country, is that Romania absorbs a lot of British media and passes through into Romania a lot of comments written by British journalists for British voters with all the background knowledge and understanding of the subtleties that actually almost no foreign audience has. And I think for British ambassadors the world over that is the biggest problem. There are a number of examples where I'm sure that most people think a certain thing about aspects of the Brexit debate, but they think about what's been in the media.

And so, the job for people like me is actually to be talking to Government to explain what is behind that. At the moment, there's an awful lot of politics around, but politics isn't the same as government policy and government action. And so, all of the newspaper coverage, and the television coverage in the UK is about the politics. You've seen nothing, virtually nothing, about the negotiations that are taking place. Because they are not televisual. And David Frost walking into a room to negotiate with Commission representatives is never going to get airtime, but that is much more important than some of the more dramatic and televisual moments from the House of Commons.

AGERPRES: The British media actually reported today that Prime Minister Boris Johnson sent forward a proposal regarding the backstop [safety mechanism for the border with Northern Ireland] situation and negotiations. How do you see things and do you think this backstop topic negotiations will also include a deadline for whatever deal will be agreed on?

Andrew Noble: Well, it's true that the contacts that today used the word negotiations that are taking place in Brussels started in a position where one side was tempted to say ?No, we've done the negotiations, no, that phase is over. Here's the deal'. What the British Government was saying was: ?It's a great deal, but...' The fact that it isn't acceptable to Parliament in the UK is an inherent problem, so we need to fix that, don't we? And if we both got the political will and flexibility and an understanding of why it matters to come up with a deal, then we can make progress. And I think, if you look at the news coverage from the start of September until today, you will see, even in the newspaper coverage that things have improved, both sides are now talking about negotiations, they're both talking about the chances of success. And I think the Prime Minister's latest initiative in passing worked up ideas to the EU side in Brussels is an essential component in reaching that final stage when a deal can be done. So, I'm very confident that the negotiations that are taking place will result in the Prime Minister being able to put a deal to the House of Commons that he endorses, that the EU endorses, and that we will not face the problems that a no-deal would bring for us.

AGERPRES: The no-deal situation is still taken into consideration when it comes to the political discourse and when it comes to diplomacy? I mean, is it still there? The fear of a no-deal or a postponement of Brexit?

Andrew Noble: The Prime Minister has made it clear that he does not foresee, in any circumstances, a postponement. He has also emphasized that within British legislation, no-deal exists, no-deal is an option. One of the ways in which no-deal exists in a very big way is in the preparations. That's the UK and member-states and the Commission are taking, because no-deal is a possibility, it's not one that anybody wants, but if it were to happen, clearly there are some serious repercussions for that, for our ordinary citizens' lives. And therefore, the British Government certainly, this Embassy, in part, also working very closely with the Romanian Government we are taking steps to prepare for that contingency, but more important is that we are working very hard to avoid that contingency.

AGERPRES: As a British citizen - just as a British citizen - do you have any fears regarding Brexit, no-deal or deal Brexit?

Andrew Noble: As a citizen, I don't think I'm interesting to you. I think I'm more interesting as a British Ambassador, so, I'll stick to that if you don't mind.

AGERPRES: Then what are the fears that the British community in Romania has in terms of Brexit? Do you know, do the British citizens living in Romania have certain fears regarding Brexit? Do they fear a no-deal Brexit, do they fear certain aspects about Brexit?

Andrew Noble: It's difficult to generalize and, obviously, I've heard some views expressed, I've heard some views expressed with much passion. Indeed, it has been important to us, as the British Embassy in Romania to listen to the Brits who are residents here. I think it's safe to say that a great majority of them do not want Brexit. They're very critical of it and, as a result, they also are concerned about their own future and their own rights. I don't think we're going to persuade them that actually they want Brexit, but what we're doing with the Romanian Government is talking about how our settled status scheme can be reciprocated to preserve for British citizens in Romania the rights that they presently enjoy. We are, we've been talking, we are, at the moment, talking very intensively to the Romanian Government. I expect there to be some significant developments on that front. I think one of their concerns is that the package of measures for their rights is not yet publicly available, it hasn't been legislated against, but, as I said, I can't break confidence, but I am confident that we will be making public progress on that very soon.

AGERPRES: The new EU leadership, does it change in a way the negotiations regarding Brexit? Do you have signals about that? Does the British diplomacy have signals about that? Is there a different voice, because the leadership of the European Union changed, so is there a change of voice?

Andrew Noble: Again, it's one of those where I can give you two short answers or a longer one. And the short answer is 'No' and 'No.' But the longer one is more interesting. Of course, the leadership hasn't changed. The new commission only takes office on the 1st of November and given the Prime Minister has made it very clear that for him Brexit day is the 31st of October that means that the new Commission ought never to have to deal with this phase of Brexit. But it's very important that everybody realises that this is not the end of Brexit. This is the UK leaving the EU, but we will now go into a phase where the new relationship between the UK and the EU has to be created. And given the amount of areas in which the commission has competence, there will be a very complex negotiation between the UK and the EU to create that new relationship. And in that sense, it might be even quite useful that it's a new team. They will not be feeling what clearly some people feel, is tired with the process of the UK leaving, but they will be in the more constructive phase of establishing what the future relationship will be and that's one where I think the views of member-states will be very important because it's the citizens in each member state who are affected by the trade relationship, the educational contacts, the scientific links, the crime-fighting, all of those things. We anticipate that that will be the phase in which the relationship is rekindled, is restructured. It will be the first time that the EU has done that sort of negotiation with this size of close partner, close neighbor with the economic potential that the UK has and with 3.2 million of its citizens living in the UK. So that's going to be a very big job for Ursula von der Leyen and her commission colleagues.

AGERPRES: Could British diplomacy or the British government, could you outline non-negotiable topics when it comes to the Brexit negotiations with the EU? Are there non-negotiable points?

Andrew Noble: You're talking about the exit files?

AGERPRES: In the ongoing negotiations now are there non-negotiable points that Britain does not want to give up on?

Andrew Noble: There's a risk I'm not going to answer a different question. The area for negotiation is very tight, it's very small. There are some small aspects of language in the political declaration. I don't have any sense that that's got anything non-negotiable in it. But the key area, it's the what's known as the backstop which is a bit of technical provision that very few people understand and very few people need to understand. But it's there because Ireland is a very special place, because of its history, the relationship between Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom is unique. It's a common travel area and has been since all time, we have a single electricity market in Ireland, we have a frictionless relationship which does not respect the existence of a border. And so, everybody wants that to avoid becoming a border. There is the Irish Peace Deal, the Belfast Agreement, the Good Friday Agreement, which we wish to retain all the benefits from. But there are other aspects to it, as well. One aspect from the EU perspective is maintaining the integrity of the single market. That is a pure trade objective. And that pure trade objective is a massive component of why the backstop is like it is. It's very important to remember that that's a driver. It's not all about peace in Ireland, it's also about that competitive edge for the single market. There's also a big component about democracy, especially for the people of Northern Ireland, because the backstop, as presently structured, before we started having discussions would require the population of Northern Ireland to pay taxes in the future that they have had no role in influencing or deciding. And if you remember, way back in the 18th century, the Americans decided that taxation without representation was a non-acceptable basis for a democratic consent. And that's fundamentally the position of the Northern Irish population in the backstop, as originally conveyed, and that's why it was unacceptable to Parliament, because taxation without representation does breach one of the fundamental precepts of Western governance.

AGERPRES: And the last question, if you were to recommend a post-Brexit toolkit for EU citizens living in the UK and UK citizens living in the EU what would the toolbox have? It doesn't have to be things, it could be also skills, if you were to make an imagination exercise...

Andrew Noble: In a way it would depend on the context in which they're living - what they individually need to have. We're hoping there's a deal. If there's a deal, there will be an implementation period and the implementation period will last at the least until December 2020. And during that period nothing will change. During that time they don't need anything different to what they've got now. After that, that's the period in which we hope that positive, constructive and huge negotiations will have delivered a very complex and ambitious relationship with the UK in the EU. And our hope is that as much as possible of cooperation between the UK and the EU will be preserved in the new document because that new relationship will be unique in terms of the EU's relationships with other countries. It's not somewhere at the other end of the world, it's not somewhere where there's no people to people relationship, or where there's no trade. It's already a massive relationship. So I hope that our governments collectively will respond to the challenge of making the EU-UK agreements the toolkit which our citizens need. 



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