Former Brexit Party MEP for the West Midlands, Martin Daubney, warned fellow Leave voters today the UK is set to agree to unfavourable terms after EU officials claimed progress had been made this week. Following the conclusion of talks on Friday, EU officials stated progress had been made, although the areas of divergence still remain. Despite the UK now being an independent nation, Mr Daubney insisted Brexiteers should be prepared for the worst.
He said: “Be warned: the detail of this so-called deal bears all the hallmarks of a sellout, especially on fishing and the level playing field.
“Brexiteers will never forgive such a betrayal.”
With time running out to agree a free trade agreement, the EU has revealed the majority of the legal texts within the deal have now been drawn up.
Albeit slow, EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen revealed movement had been made on certain areas.
The EU has persisted with its aims of tying the UK into its state aid infrastructure.
Brussels has also remained defiant over fisheries and is yet to agree to the UK’s proposal of yearly negotiations.
Instead, the EU has put forward a plan whereby fishing quotas could be negotiated at a later date.
The two sides have also failed to agree on the dispute mechanism – this states the process for resolving trade disputes involved with the treaty.
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If a deal is agreed, the legislation would need to be ratified by the EU Parliament and due to its nature, national parliaments across the continent too.
With time running out before the end of the transition period on January 1, EU officials are concerned any agreement will not be ratified in time.
One option for Brussels could involve an emergency meeting to be held before the end of the year to complete the process.
Another would be to agree elements of the deal before it is fully ratified in 2021.
One EU diplomat said: “There is tangible progress on a number of areas while gaps are only slowly shrinking on core issues like level playing field, governance and fisheries.
“Growing concern that the negotiation process does not proceed quickly enough to ensure the ratification of a possible agreement until the end-of-the-year deadline.
“Hope is nevertheless that negotiations can be finalised quickly if and once the necessary political decisions are taken in London.
“At the same time, EU member states are in agreement that contingency planning needs to be ramped up in parallel to the ongoing and hopefully successful EU-UK negotiation process.
“Still the EU needs to be prepared for every possible outcome.”
