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Ahead of the fourth round of negotiations, Mr Johnson’s spokesman insisted the EU had to abandon its proposal of a “level-playing field” in regulations between the two territories after the post-Brexit transition ends on December 31. Mr Barnier’s refusal to budge on the issue was hampering chances of making the progress needed to allow the video conference talks to continue, the official suggested.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said any agreement would have to balance the benefits to both sides in the talks.

“In relation to the level playing field, the EU have insisted on inserting these novel and unbalanced proposals which would subject the UK to EU laws or standards,” the spokesman said.

“These proposals are unprecedented for a free trade agreement.

“As soon as the EU recognises that we will not accept an agreement on that basis we will be able to make progress.”

The spokesman pointed to the “political declaration” setting out broad outline of a future UK-EU relationship that was signed by both sides during the Brexit negotiations.

“The political declaration sets out the potential scope of the future relationship. Both we and the EU signed up to it. Any agreement based on it has to be balanced,” he said.

Mr Johnson is expected to speak to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen later this month to assess whether enough progress has been made for the trade talks to continue.

“We’re hoping this latest round of talks is constructive and we hope it will keep the progress on track ahead of the high-level meeting this month,” the spokesman said.

No date has been set yet for the stock-taking meeting, which must be held by the end of this month.

Tory MP Peter Bone, above, said: “The EU doesn’t have any level-playing field arrangements with other countries outside the bloc. It is absurd to suggest that the fifth biggest economy in the world should stay subservient to EU rules. It isn’t going to happen.”

He added: “The EU needs to start listening and accept that we have left. The Government should set a deadline for the point at which we give up on a free trade deal and look to a relationship based on World Trade Organisation rules.”

Whitehall officials yesterday rejected a call from London’s Labour mayor for the post-Brexit transition to be extended.

Sadiq Khan wrote to Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove to propose a delay because of the impact of the coronavirus crisis.

He wrote:  “No one anticipated when voting for Brexit that the key negotiations would take place at a time when all governments are rightly focused on fighting a global pandemic.

“The last thing the country needs as it tries to find a way back from the devastation wreaked by coronavirus is more chaos and uncertainty.

“I urge the Government to put political ideology aside and pursue the pragmatic route of seeking an extension to the negotiations so that we and our European partners can focus on recovery from COVID-19.”

In response to the mayor’s letter, a Government spokesman said: “We have taken unprecedented action to support businesses through this pandemic and to ensure the UK’s economic recovery is as strong and as swift as possible.

“An extension to the transition period would bind us into future EU legislation, without us having any say in designing it, but still having to foot the bill as we would still have to make payments into the EU budget.

“The EU themselves have said that their next budget will be unusual, and we would have no say in what it would go towards.

“We need to be able to design our own rules, in our best interests, to manage our response to coronavirus – without the constraints of following EU rules.”

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