The EU negotiator said the UK would not be afforded the same trade deals as Canada and South Korea without accepting swathes of EU rules and standards. His intervention comes after David Frost, the Prime Minister’s top Europe adviser, said he would not simply accept Brussels attempt to tie the UK to its state aid, taxation, environmental standards and workers’ rights. Mr Barnier told reporters: “We have proposed a trade agreement with a country that has a very particular and unique close geographical proximity  not like Canada, not like South Korea and not like Japan. Very particular.

“We are ready to propose and work very quickly with Britain on the basis of the political declaration which was agreed with  Boris Johnson.

“We stand ready to propose this agreement , if the UK wants it.”

In a speech at a Brussels university last night, Mr Frost described the EU’s level-playing field as undemocratic.

Mr Barnier insisted it was “truly not” the case the bloc is trying to use trade negotiations to undermine Westminster’s sovereignty.

He added: “It is a sovereign decision of the UK and the EU to put in certain subjects, their rules, their normal in cooperation with the other.

“It is a sovereign decision of the EU, it is a sovereign decision of the UK to cooperate.

“It is formally written in the political declaration that distortion of competition, unfair competition… that is what Boris Johnson wrote in the political declaration.

“We want to find the means, serious and calmly, to put in a legal and political transition to go hand in hand with each other.”

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