Barnier: Let us fish in UK waters or risk No Deal

BRITAIN could crash out of Brexit trade talks with No Deal unless it makes concessions over fishing rights, the EU’s chief negotiator warned yesterday.

Michel Barnier said he was ‘worried and disappointed’ about the UK’s lack of compromise following a meeting with the Government’s negotiator David Frost.

And he warned that, under any deal, European fishermen must continue to have access to British waters. But the Government has vowed against this.

Speaking in Dublin, Mr Barnier claimed the UK does not have sovereignty over the fish in its waters.

He said: ‘Obviously the UK will recover the full sovereignty on their waters.

‘But it is another thing speaking about the fish which are inside the waters.’

Mr Barnier said the end of October was a ‘strict deadline’ to finalise an agreement for next year.

But the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said ‘ major difficulties remain’ between the two sides.

Britain left the EU on January 31 but entered a transition period until December 31 while the two sides negotiate a trade agreement.

If a deal is not made and ratified by the end of the year, the UK will go into 2021 trading with the bloc on World Trade Organisation rules – which critics fear could damage the economy.

But Boris Johnson has ruled out any extension to the transition period, saying it was his priority to ‘get Brexit done’.

Speaking at an event in Dublin ahead of the eighth round of trade talks next week, Mr Barnier claimed: ‘I’ve shown clearly openness to find compromise. If [the UK] don’t move on the issues which are the key issues of the EU... the UK will take itself the risk of a No Deal.’

A UK source said: ‘Barnier’s speech is a misleading caricature of our proposals aimed at deflecting scrutiny from the EU’s own positions which are wholly unrealistic and unprecedented.’