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Boris Johnson’s chief Brexit negotiator has said there must be “more realism” from Brussels about the “UK’s status as an independent country.”
David frost has stated that this week is decisive for trade talks with the EU if the UK wants to avoid leaving the transition period without a deal.
Lord Frost and the EU Michel barnier are gathering for the eighth round of Brexi Negotiations in London after the prime minister set a new deadline for a deal that is only five weeks away.
And Lord Frost insists that progress must be made in this week’s talks if the UK and the EU are to reach a deal before the prime minister’s October 15 deadline, when European leaders meet in a grand summit.
“Today I will sit down with Michel Barnier and convey our clear message that we must move forward this week if we are to reach an agreement on time,” he said.
“We have been talking for six months and we can no longer afford to go down the beaten path. We need to see more realism from the EU about our status as an independent country.”
“As we have done from the beginning in public and in private, I will reinforce our simple and reasonable request for a free trade agreement based on those that the EU has signed before with like-minded partners.
“Throughout, we have listened carefully to our EU counterparts, expressed flexibility where possible to move the talks forward, and put forward new proposals to move forward.
“But we have repeatedly made clear that the key elements of our position stem from the foundations of being a sovereign state, and it is time for the EU to fully recognize this reality.
“If they cannot do that in the very limited time we have left, then we will be negotiating on terms like the EU has with Australia, and we are stepping up our preparations for the end of the year.”
But despite his warning, Lord Frost insisted: “There is still time to reach a good agreement and I am looking forward to this week’s face-to-face negotiations in which I hope progress can be made.”
Johnson said this week that a no-deal exit from the EU would be a “good result” and Lord Frost said in an interview that Britain will not “blink” in talks this week.
According to the Daily Telegraph, the prime minister will tell EU leaders that the withdrawal agreement he renegotiated with them last year and then signed is “contradictory”.
The newspaper reports that Johnson believes the agreement is “legally ambiguous” and would leave Northern Ireland isolated from the rest of the UK, something that was “unforeseen” last year.
Johnson’s political opponents and other European leaders are skeptical of the British government’s apparent threat to walk away and claim that it is acting in an attempt to win concessions from the EU.
“At this stage in the negotiations, you often see a certain level of saber rattling and a certain level of posture, if you will,” said Ireland’s Vice President Leo Varadkar. “So our response to this will be measured.”
The prime minister is also being accused of breaking his own withdrawal agreement by publish a bill in parliament that nullifies the most controversial part of the agreement, the protocol designed to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.
“We have a withdrawal agreement,” Varadkar added. “It is an international treaty and international treaties must be respected.”
In Westminster, Labor claims that Mr Johnson now plans to introduce legislation, the internal market bill, affecting the retirement agreement suggests that the deal he made was not as good as he claimed.
“He promised the British people he had an oven-ready deal,” Northern Ireland Secretary Louise Haigh told Sky News.
“He promised Northern Ireland companies that they could tear up the paperwork and throw it in the bin if asked to fill it out when trading between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”
“None of that was going to be true and he knew it, based on the protocol agreement he negotiated with the EU last October.
“Either he didn’t know what he was accessing, or he’s been misleading the public ever since.
“And it may be the case now that they are covering their tracks and trying to unilaterally withdraw from something they always knew they were going to have to implement.”
Former pro-Remain cabinet minister David Gauke told Sky News that the prime minister is trying to reconcile the deal he sold to the public with the one he actually signed.
“The government is unilaterally trying to rewrite the content of the treaty to make it consistent with what the prime minister said,” Gauke said.
“But that is not consistent with what the treaty that was agreed to by both parties last year and implemented by parliament earlier this year really means.
“And if that is what happens, it is clearly going to damage trust between the EU and the UK. The EU is likely to see this as an act of bad faith on the UK’s part, and frankly with some justification.” .
But conservative allies in Westminster, the Democratic Unionist Party, gave a cautious welcome to the prime minister’s proposals for new legislation.
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“The uncertainty surrounding the future commercial relationship is an issue that the government must urgently address,” the DUP said in a statement.
“Great Britain is our main market. It accounts for 52.7% of Northern Ireland’s external sales and 65% of Northern Ireland’s purchases are from Great Britain.
“We note speculation that the government will apply alternative measures under the Internal Market Act to protect Northern Ireland’s interests in the event that an agreement is not reached to mitigate the threat of the NI Protocol.”
“We will want to see the finer details and clauses related to this and we will study them carefully.
“We welcome them broadly as they move forward, but the government must continue to work to remove any handicap for Northern Ireland caused by the signing of the Protocol.”
