Brexiteers express alarm that they may ‘only get 60% of their demands from EU’

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen in the House of Commons. Photograph: House of Commons/PA. - Credit: PA

Brexiteers have expressed alarm at suggestions the UK is on track to secure more than half of its objectives for a future trade deal with the EU, which they deem not enough.

A Tory insider told the Sunday Times that the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator David Frost is more upbeat than his EU counterpart about the prospect of a deal, and is privately positive about the prospect, but appears to acknowledge it still may not be everything the Brexiteers are hoping for.

They said: ‘His (Frost’s) view seems to be that we will get a deal, but he doesn’t seem to be completely thrilled with what it is likely to be.

‘When people hear that we are getting 60% of what we want, the question on everyone’s lips is: ‘What is the 40% we are giving away?”

Tory Brexiteer MP Andrew Bridgen fumed to the Express that it would be a bad outcome if not all demands were agreed to.

‘I can’t see how we can give so much. The majority of the items we disagree on and are causing the stumbling blocks, no sovereign nation could ever agree to. They are not reasonable demands.

‘The EU is not treating the UK as an independent sovereign nation, it is acting as if we are still a member of the EU.’

Frost has previously said that fishing and the so-called level playing field rules that keep the UK tied to the EU remain ‘the most difficult areas’.

He previously told a news conference: ‘The time for answers is quickly running out. If we do not reach an agreement on our future partnership there will be more friction.’


Have your say
Send your letters for publication to The New European by emailing letters@theneweuropean.co.uk and pick up an edition each Thursday for more comment and analysis. Find your nearest stockist here or subscribe to a print or digital edition for just £13. You can also join our readers' Facebook group to keep the discussion and debate going with thousands of fellow pro-Europeans.

Twitter Brexiteers responded to the news by claiming they were only getting ‘half a Brexit’.

An Express editorial fumed: ‘This is like being 60% pregnant – it’s just not possible. We are either 100% in or 100% out.’