‘Very little progress’ has been made in the latest round of UK-EU trade talks, the government has admitted, as the threat of a stalemate looms.

UK officials accuse Brussels of wanting to keep Britain in a ‘halfway house’ with EU law continuing to apply in some areas of the economy. Meanwhile the EU is adamant that Downing Street is trying to keep the benefits of membership without any of the costs.

Negotiators finished their third round of talks today, with the next round set to begin on June 1st. Both sides have gone public with their displeasure, saying the other needs to change their approach to avoid a no-deal.

Britain’s chief negotiator, David Frost, said a far-reaching deal was being held up by the EU’s desire to ‘bind’ the UK to its laws in return for market access. He also warned that Britain would not agree to the EU’s demand for unrestricted access to Britain’s fishing waters as part of a deal.

Mr Frost said:  ‘I regret that we made very little progress towards agreement on the most significant outstanding issues between us.

‘It is very clear that a standard Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, with other key agreements on issues like law enforcement, civil nuclear, and aviation alongside… could be agreed without major difficulties in the time available.

‘The major obstacle to this is the EU’s insistence on including a set of novel and unbalanced proposals on the so-called ‘level playing field’ which would bind this country to EU law or standards, or determine our domestic legal regimes, in a way that is unprecedented in Free Trade Agreements and not envisaged in the Political Declaration.

‘As soon as the EU recognises that we will not conclude an agreement on that basis, we will be able to make progress.’

A level playing field is a term for a set of common rules and standards that prevent businesses in one country undercutting their rivals and gaining a competitive advantage over those operating in other countries.

Mr Frost accused the EU of insisting on an ‘ideological approach’ which makes it ‘more difficult to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.’

He said the UK would make public all its draft legal texts next week so EU member states and interested observers ‘can see our approach in detail’.

There were already doubts a trade deal could be struck between the two sides before the coronavirus pandemic, with Boris Johnson refusing to extend the post-Brexit transition period beyond its scheduled conclusion in December 2020.

Mr Frost said the government’s position is that is still believes an agreement is possible by the end of the year.

A senior UK official close to the trade talks said the Brexit negotiations had been ‘a little bit tetchy at times’ and ‘disruptive’ but had ‘gone well in terms of process’.

But Mr Barnier told the BBC that while he was ‘determined’ to reach a deal, he was ‘not optimistic’.

He accused the UK of being ‘unrealistic’ in its demand for a Canada-stye free trade agreement.

He claimed the UK Government had not accepted the consequences of leaving the EU and said: ‘The UK will have to be more realistic. They will have to move beyond this lack of understanding. It will doubtless have to change its strategy.’

Last month a poll indicated the majority of the public, including Leavers, would rather see the government extend its Brexit deadline than deal with negotiations while coronavirus rages through Europe.

Ministers have rejected this idea, saying that if the trade talks cannot reach a successful conclusion it will be as a result of fundamental political differences, rather than a lack of time.

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