Johnson says no-deal Brexit remains the ‘most likely outcome’
Boris Johnson has said that leaving the European Union without a free trade agreement still remains the "most likely outcome" as talks continue in Brussels.
The Prime Minister told his Cabinet yesterday that he was committed to continuing negotiations on the remaining areas of disagreement and re-emphasised the desire to strike a deal.
His official spokesman told a Westminster briefing: "(Mr Johnson) re-emphasised the desire to reach a free trade agreement - but not at any cost - and reiterated that any agreement must respect the inde - pendence and sovereignty of the UK.
"The Prime Minister made clear that not being able to reach an agreement and ending the transition period on Australian-style terms remained the most likely outcome but committed to continuing to negotiate on the remaining areas of disagreement."
The spokesman also insisted that there remained enough time to pass legislation if a deal is reached to come into force at the end of the transition period. Asked whether there were no circumstances under which some form of provisional arrangement would be required, the spokesman said: "We are confident that all of the necessary domestic UK legislation required for January 1 will be in force by the end of the transition period."
The need for any deal to be approved by Parliament means talks cannot continue until New Year's Eve, but MPS are braced for the prospect of sitting over the festive period.
Suggestions that a key sticking point had been overcome by the two sides agreeing on a joint dispute mechanism to prevent unilateral punishment if the UK strays from EU standards in the future were being downplayed.
A source close to the UK negotiators said :" The position is the same, talks remain very difficult."
They said that D owning Street accepts there needs to measures to assess whe ther there is "genuinely unfair competition ", but stressed that "it needs to be reciprocal, needs to be based in arbitration and needs to be done in a fair way".
"But we're not close on this stuff yet. There's a lot of outstanding details to go through, on other areas too, so there's genuinely no reason to be excited about things today ," the source added.
It came as Lab our former prime minister Gordon Brown warned that a failure to reach an agreement would be the "greatest failure of international statesmanship".
He told a webinar held by the Child Poverty Action Group: "I worry because we're falling out with Africa because we're cutting overseas aid, we' re falling out with China over all sorts of things which may be justifiable, we're falling out with Europe and we're falling out with America.
"It's really not a very good way to end the year and to start the next year.
"So I hope a deal is set and struck and it would be, in my view, the greatest failure of international statesmanship if Europe and the United Kingdom couldn't actually arrange a deal that avoided chaos on January 1.”