Prospects for an EU trade deal are “looking difficult” Boris Johnson has said with just 13 days to go to the end-of-year deadline for agreement.
Mr Johnson said that “no sensible government” would sign up to a deal which took away its control over its laws and fishing waters, in a way that the UK has complained that EU proposals would.
He was speaking shortly after EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier warned that “just a few hours” remain for the UK and EU to reach a post-Brexit trading agreement, telling MEPs in Brussels: “This is the the moment of truth.”
Speaking during a visit to Bolton, Mr Johnson suggested the onus was on the EU to “see sense” over continuing differences on access to UK fishing waters for European boats and the “level playing-field” on common standards and regulations.
He admitted that a no-deal Brexit on 31 December, under which the UK would trade with Europe on unfavourable World Trade Organisation terms, would be “difficult at first”.
But he insisted – despite forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility that no-deal would knock 2 per cent off the UK economy next year – that the country would just have to “get through this period” of difficulty before prospering “mightily” in the long run.
Speaking the morning after a video call with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen failed to deliver a breakthrough, Mr Johnson said: “We want to keep talking if there’s any chance of a deal.
“But we’ve also got to recognise that the UK has got to be able to control its own laws – that’s what people voted for – and we’ve got to be able to control our waters and our fishing rights. That’s obviously also what people voted for.
“No sensible government is going to agree to a treaty that doesn’t have those two basic things in it, as well as everything else.”
He added: “Our door is open. We’ll keep talking. But I have to say that things are looking difficult, and there’s a gap that needs to be to be bridged.
“The UK has done a lot to try and help and we hope that our EU friends will see sense and come to the table with with something themselves, because that’s that’s really where we are.
“And if that doesn’t happen, then come 1 January, we will be trading on on WTO terms – an event that has obviously been four and a half years in the making, four and a half years in the preparation.
“Yes, it may be difficult at first, but this country will prosper mightily – as I’ve said many many times -on any terms and under any arrangement and I think we’ve just got to get through this period and look at all the opportunities that will open up for this country in 2021.”
