Will Brexit Talks be Delayed?

by Louise Mclean

Despite the UK being pretty clear on what it would like during the first round of talks last week, the EU has decided that Britain must 'make up its mind'!  Ursula von der Leyen has stated that Britain must play by the Single Market rules for access to it, or it will be more difficult for us to trade.

However Britain has emphatically said that it would like a Canadian style Free Trade Agreement, supplemented by other international agreements and appropriate governance arrangements. A spokesman for the government said we would not seek alignment with the EU in any way.  

He said there will be new processes that exporters and importers will have to comply with, whether we reach an agreement or not.  'Obviously this will create some friction and we will have to mitigate that, but we are firmly convinced that the benefits of having control of our own laws outweigh the costs'.

According to the Daily Telegraph the deal Britain wants is not really just a Canada deal but the best parts of all free trade agreements the EU has with other countries and it is unlikely the EU will agree to this without strings attached. For example, Britain would like a zero tariff, zero quotas deal but no other non-EU country have this, neither does Canada.

Boris Johnson's government plan to release its own full draft of the free trade agreement it wants, before the next round of planned talks in London on 18th to 20th March next week. This will make a change from always following the EU's lead and conducting talks in Brussels.  However, with the Corona virus in full panic mode, this may be delayed, though at the moment the talks are not cancelled.

Whether they are postponed or conducted via video link, Michael Gove, the Brexit supremo, is very confident that a deal will be struck, especially after reading lead negotiator, David Frost's report on the talks which were held last week.

Update 18.00: Talks between UK and EU next week will probably now be via video link.