Oliver JJ Lane – October 16, 2020
The European Union has shown no intention of accepting entering into a “Canada-style” deal with the United Kingdom in the post-Brexit era and talks have therefore failed, Boris Johnson said on Friday on the second day of a crunch EU summit.
The United Kingdom will now be putting its energy into preparing the country for a full no-deal Brexit on January 31st, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday lunchtime, after two days of high-level talks with European leaders appeared to have failed in producing progress.
The talks had stalled for months over very fundamental differences over what both sides wanted out of the future relationship. While Britain wanted a deal with Europe the same as the one the bloc had already struck with Canada — a former British dominion with similar cultural, political, and legal traditions — which would allow easy trade without the EU exerting political control over the nations’ capital, Brussels had different ideas.
Insisting a Canada-style deal was not possible because the UK was in closer geographical proximity to the European Union, Brussels negotiators instead wanted to retain key controls over Britain, including the right to impose EU laws on Britain and to make decisions over British territorial waters.
Noting despite months of talks nothing consequential had changed in that situation as of today, Mr Johnson said the EU insisting it keep those controls were “completely unacceptable to an independent country”.