Has Brussels blinked first in Brexit standoff?

EU agrees to ‘intensify’ talks – but PM says it’s still not enough

BRUSSELS yesterday said that it was finally willing to yield to Boris Johnson’s demands to ‘intensify’ Brexit trade talks after he issued an ultimatum.

But Downing Street insisted that the EU still needs to give more ground before the discussions can restart.

The Prime Minister last week said there was no point in continuing the discussions after a european Council summit failed to provide a breakthrough on a deal and watered down commitments to round-theclock negotiations.

Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove yesterday said further talks would be ‘meaningless’ without a shift in the EU’s stance.

He criticised european leaders after they ‘dropped a reference to intensive talks’ that had been in a draft of the summit conclusions and ‘declared that all future moves in this negotiation had to be made by the UK’.

In a bid to revive the process, the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier yesterday told his British counterpart Lord Frost in a telephone call that Brussels was willing to ‘intensify talks’. He also indicated that it was prepared to discuss ‘legal texts’ for a deal, something that the UK has been pushing for. Speaking in the Commons, Mr Gove said that the concessions were a ‘reflection of the strength and resolution [of] our Prime Minister’ and a sign that the Government’s ‘firmness’ with the EU is ‘now bearing fruit’.

But Downing Street said that Brussels also needed to accept the need for it to make concessions on the remaining stumbling blocks, including fisheries and state aid, before the UK would return to the negotiating table.

A No10 spokesman said that there had been a ‘constructive discussion’ and the two sides would remain in close touch, but stressed that there was no hope of progress unless there was a dramatic change in the EU’s position.

‘The UK has noted the EU’s proposal to genuinely intensify talks, which is what would be expected at this stage in a negotiation,’ the spokesman said.

‘However, the UK continues to believe there is no basis to resume talks unless there is a fundamental change of approach from the EU.

‘This means an EU approach consistent with trying to find an agreement between sovereign equals and with acceptance that movement needs to come from the EU side as well as the UK.’

It is expected that Mr Barnier and Lord Frost will have a further telephone conversation later in the week to see if there is a way to break the impasse. earlier yesterday, Downing Street stressed that if no deal is in place by the end of the year – when the current transition arrangements are due to end – the UK will not return to the negotiating table next year. ‘We must provide certainty to our citizens and businesses, and endless prolonged negotiations won’t achieve this,’ the Prime Minister’s spokesman said.

Meanwhile, in the Commons, Theresa May poured scorn on Mr Johnson’s post-Brexit security commitments as she warned of the dangers of a ‘No Deal’ scenario. The former prime minister repeatedly said ‘What?’ in disbelief and appeared to mouth ‘Utter rubbish!’ as Mr Gove outlined how the UK will be expected to boost its security outside the EU. He claimed that there were ‘many, many areas’ in which the UK can co- operate ‘more effectively’ to protect its borders after Brexit.