Brexit: ‘Tetchier’ trade talks offer little progress, says UK

The UK has said “very little progress” has been made in the latest round of Brexit trade negotiations with the EU.

In negotiations described as “tetchier” by one source, the UK and EU remain far apart on the most divisive key issues on securing a trading relationship after Brexit.

Those include fisheries and the so-called level playing field – a set of common rules and agreed standards to prevent either power undercutting the other.

A senior UK official told City PM the EU must move away from its political negotiating mandate if it hopes to secure a deal.

They said: “We were told last autumn the EU would have to change their mandate, because it meant they wouldn’t be allowed a change to the backstop.

“In the end they did it, but they never formally changed their mandate. The political reality has got to be accepted before we can make progress.”

UK negotiators say they are “still optimistic” a deal can be done before the end of 2020, the deadline Downing Street is sticking to despite the coronavirus pandemic.

But the senior British official also told City PM that the EU wants to find compromise on issues the UK sees as being black and white.

“The EU wants a half way house on what we’re willing to see on level playing field and what they’re willing to see, and on what we’re willing to see on fisheries and what they’re willing to see,” they said.

“There isn’t a halfway house, you can’t split the difference. You either control your own waters or you don’t.

The UK official described progress on the issue of fishing as “pretty modest”.

“I’d hesitate to describe it as progress to be honest,” they added. “We sent them our text before this round.

“What we’ve heard is the EU can regard zonal attachment… as one of the criteria for the future. We’ll have to see what that means, they’ve given no specifics.”

Chief UK negotiator David Frost described the “major obstacle” to a Brexit trade deal being the EU’s “insistence on including a set of novel and unbalanced proposals on the so-called ‘level playing field'”.

He warned this would “bind this country to EU law or standards, or determine our domestic legal regimes, in a way that is unprecedented”.