A no-deal Brexit is now the likeliest outcome from trade talks between Britain and the European Union, PM Boris Johnson said on Friday, and top EU officials are reported to have the same view as the Sunday deadline looms.
Britain still has “teams” in Brussels negotiating the post-Brexit trade agreement, Johnson said during a visit to Blyth in Northumberland. “And if there is a big offer, a big change in what they are saying, then I must say that I’ve yet to see it,” he said.
However, he explained that two key unresolved things remain in the talks. One is a “kind of ratchet clause” to keep the UK “locked in to whatever they want to do in terms of legislation,” and the other is “the whole issue of fish” as the UK wants “to take back control of our waters.”
“It is looking very, very likely that we will have to go for a solution that I think would be wonderful for the UK, and we’d be able to do exactly what we want from January 1,” he said, adding that “it obviously would be different from what we’d set out to achieve.”
Johnson met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday, and over a dinner, they instructed Brexit negotiators David Frost and Michel Barnier to try to break the Brexit impasse until Sunday.
But von der Leyen also reportedly told 27 leaders of EU member states on Friday that “the probability of a no deal is higher than of a deal.”
As a trade deal is still in the works, large lines of lorries are already seen at British ports, and Johnson’s spokesman had to explain on Friday that the queues were not caused by the looming Brexit.
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