UK toughens stance before talks with EU

Sovereignty above trade, says govt in rejecting bloc's oversight of any deal

The United Kingdom has fired a shot across the bows of the European Union by warning that its top priority in upcoming trade talks is not a free-trade deal but British sovereignty and autonomy.

The nation, which officially left the political and economic union on Jan 31, has agreed to continue to follow EU rules during a transition period that concludes on Dec 31.Both sides have vowed to seek a trade deal in the interim that will formalize their future relationship.

The UK government agreed its position in private on Tuesday and will present it in Parliament on Thursday, ahead of trade talks that should start on Monday.

The Guardian newspaper quoted an unnamed "senior government source" as saying the UK now has a "red line" of zero oversight of any post-Brexit trade deal from the European Court of Justice or from the EU Parliament in Brussels.

"Our overriding objective in the negotiations is, by Jan 1, to have taken back control, and we won't agree to anything that doesn't deliver that, which means no rule-taking from the EU and no role for the European Court of Justice," the source said.

The insider added that the UK wants an arm's length "Canada-style" free-trade agreement, something the EU's chief post-Brexit trade deal negotiator, Michel Barnier, has said will never happen.

The Canada-style deal that London wants, which took eight years to complete, came into effect in 2017 and eliminates almost all tariffs while agreeing many quotas. It aligns the entities in trading terms without any form of political union.

The Financial Times said the hard line coming out of Downing Street suggests the UK would rather walk away from talks than agree to EU oversight, and that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was prepared to "sacrifice the interests of British business" if necessary.

The paper said it was the first time Britain had explicitly said it will prioritize sovereignty over the wish-list of British business groups, which have previously said they want a trade deal that closely aligns the UK with the EU.

'Different to Canada'

The bloc, which agreed its own negotiating stance on Tuesday, said the UK is completely different to Canada and, with issues such as shared access to fishing grounds on the table, a different deal is needed.

Nathalie Loiseau, an MEP from the ruling Republique En Marche party in France, said on Radio 4's Today program that the EU is not seeking hegemony over the UK but a preservation of standards that will require oversight from EU organs.

"If you would like to lower the standards (in areas such as food and farming), there would be a mechanism to protect us from any sort of unfair competition," she said.

The EU, in a document released on Tuesday, says its "envisaged agreement should uphold common high standards, and corresponding high standards over time with (European) Union standards as a reference point".

It wants oversight "in the areas of state aid, competition, state-owned enterprises, social and employment standards, environmental standards, climate change, relevant tax matters and other regulatory measures and practices in these areas".