Brexit: UK will continue trade talks after Boris Johnson’s deadline expires

The UK will not walk away from Brexit trade talks this week despite the passing of Boris Johnson’s deadline, according to a person close to negotiations.

Britain’s chief negotiator David Frost is expected to advise the prime minister to stay in talks – and tell him it will be difficult but not impossible to get an agreement.

Mr Johnson will make the formal decision to continue the process at the end of the week following an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, where heads of government are expected to warn that not enough progress has been made.”

Talks have heated up in the last few days, with both sides trading accusations. UK government sources on Tuesday accused the EU of following their standard “playbook” and trying to “run down the clock” by not engaging on issues like fishing.

But senior EU figures have equally warned that a deal can only be done if Boris Johnson decides he wants to do one. Dacian Ciolos, Emmanuel Macron’s top MEP in Brussels, on Monday told The Independent the PM needed to “step up to the crease”. 

The prime minister had previously said he saw little point talking through autumn, and that if there was a deal to be done it would emerge by this week’s summit. 

Mr Johnson is set to hold one-on-one talks with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen later today. But both sides continue to dig their heels in on the key issues – at least in public.

A draft version of the Thursday and Friday summit conclusions on Brexit circulated by Brussels backchannels ahead of the meeting says that “progress on the key issues of interest to the union is still not sufficient for an agreement to be reached”

Despite steady progress on minor side-issues, two major sticking points remain before a free trade agreement can be reached. The first is the extent to which EU fishing fleets will have access to UK waters, and the second is the so-called “level-playingfield” of regulations.

The UK has in particular refused to play ball on the question of state aid rules, which Downing Street is thought to want more flexibility on than European rules allow.

Britain left the EU earlier in 2020 but remains in the single market and customs union until the end of this year. This second “economic” Brexit is expected to be more noticeable than the first “political” Brexit – with disruption to trade flows expected whether a deal is reached or not.

But a free trade agreement would limit the worst economic damage of a no-deal Brexit, and both sides say they want to strike one. 

The European Parliament has said a deal needs to be struck by the end of October to give time for it to be ratified and translated, though Mr Johnson had previously said this week’s summit was the UK’s deadline –  two weeks earlier.

If talks to continue past the summit, these two weeks are likely to be key for agreeing a deal.