The UK and the EU are on a collision course as the UK sets out its red lines even before talks start on a post-Brexit trade agreement
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Picture: BLOOMBERG/JASON ALDEN
“At the end of this year, we will regain in full our political and economic independence,” the prime minister’s spokesman James Slack told reporters. The UK wants a free-trade agreement similar to the one Canada has with the EU, but he said a looser arrangement such as with Australia — which has no FTA with the bloc — would “be OK as well,” though he conceded there would be “some friction”.
Johnson’s government, which will publish its negotiating mandate on Thursday, is expecting tensions with the bloc over competition and state aid rules, according to a UK official. It also expects difficulties over fisheries — a contentious issue that EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said this week must be resolved before a deal can be struck.
The UK said it has no intention of building infrastructure at ports to check goods entering Northern Ireland — and therefore the EU’s single market — a position that triggered an instant warning over “backsliding” from European leaders including Irish caretaker prime minister Leo Varadkar.
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