Katy Balls Katy Balls

Brexit blame game as latest talks stall

Despite Boris Johnson’s call for Brexit negotiations to speed up, the seventh round of talks has today ended with little progress. Neither side is bothering to suggest the latest round was particularly productive. Instead, the comments today from Michel Barnier and the UK’s lead negotiator David Frost were focussed on attributing blame for the current deadlock.

Barnier said that, if anything, the talks had at times ‘felt as if we were going backwards more than forwards’. His outlook for a potential deal is gloomy – suggesting it seems ‘unlikely’. 

Meanwhile, Frost has hit out at Brussels’s refusal to move on to many aspects of a potential agreement until issues surrounding EU state-aid and fisheries are solved: ‘The EU is still insisting not only that we must accept continuity with EU state-aid and fisheries policy but also that this must be agreed before any further substantive work can be done in any other area of the negotiation, including on legal texts.’

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