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The UK’s chief negotiator David Frost said little progress had been made as he hit out at the EU’s level playing field and fishing demands. And a senior British official close to the negotiations warned the UK could walk away if a deal cannot be agreed.

Reacting on Twitter, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said: “Good to see the British Government holding firm for once.”

Former Brexit Party MEP Martin Daubney wrote: “So long as the EU insists on full access to UK fisheries & its ‘level playing field’ we seemed destined for a clean break Brexit. Bring it on!”

Ex-UKIP and independent MP Douglas Carswell added: “Seems pretty clear. If the EU persists with these demands that we be bound by its rules, we’ll trade with them like any other WTO member.”

Former MEP Rupert Lowe tweeted: “Great to see Frost really pushing back against the EU. Attacking them for the little progress made and their ‘ideological’ approach which is proving impossible to deal with. A belated clean break Brexit is looking ever closer. Fantastic news!”

And the Bruges Group think tank said: “Once again, the EU’s unwillingness to negotiate in good faith has been exposed.

“The fundamental issue is that Eurocrats in Brussels expect to be able to treat us differently to other countries with whom they have trade deals.

“An extension would not fix such a broken mindset.”

Mr Frost said the EU’s demand for a level playing field on standards was a key stumbling block.

He said: “I regret however 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, all in line with the Political Declaration, 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.

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

Mr Frost said that fishing was another sticking point.

He said: “Although we have had useful discussions on fisheries on the basis of our draft legal text, the EU continues to insist on fisheries arrangements and access to UK fishing waters in a way that is incompatible with our future status as an independent coastal state.

“We are fully committed to agreeing fishing provisions in line with the Political Declaration, but we cannot agree arrangements that are manifestly unbalanced and against the interests of the UK fishing industry.

“It is hard to understand why the EU insists on an ideological approach which makes it more difficult to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.”

Mr Frost added: “We very much need a change in EU approach for the next round beginning on June 1.

“In order to facilitate those discussions, we intend to make public all the UK draft legal texts during next week, so that the EU’s member states and interested observers can see our approach in detail.”

The senior UK official close to the negotiations said the problem “continues to be that the EU thinks that a kind of halfway house between what we’re willing to see on the so-called level playing field and what they’re willing to see”.

The official continued: “As we’ve tried to make clear from the start, there isn’t a halfway house – we can’t split the difference between areas where we control our own laws and waters, and those that we don’t.”

The official said both sides remained “optimistic” a deal could be struck and that it was “easy to see” how a “pretty standard and major free trade agreement” could be agreed quite quickly.

But they added: “We’ve always made clear that if an agreement can’t be reached then trading on what we call Australia terms is perfectly doable and satisfactory.”

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier insisted that the UK could “not have the best of both worlds”.

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