Boris Johnson has warned EU leaders they will have to change tack if there is to be a post-Brexit trade deal, with just two months to go until both sides take stock of whether an agreement is possible.
Downing Street said Mr Johnson believed that while talks might continue, it was unlikely both sides could come to an agreement that did not recognise the UK’s status as “an independent state”. “Clearly there will need to be some political movement on the EU side,” a Downing Street official said on Monday, suggesting that heads of government would have to intervene to revise the bloc’s negotiating position.
Meanwhile Michael Gove, Cabinet Office minister, told MPs that the business turmoil caused by coronavirus would not cause the government to seek an extension to Britain’s post-Brexit transition period, which ends on December 31. “Coronavirus in some respects should concentrate the minds of EU negotiators in underlining the importance of coming to a conclusion,” Mr Gove told MPs on the House of Commons committee looking at trade talks. Experience from years of Brexit talks with Brussels showed that “whenever a deadline was extended, the light at the end of the tunnel was replaced by more tunnel”, he said.
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