FILE PHOTO: Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak speaks on Spending Review 2020 and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest economic and fiscal forecast at the House of Commons in London, Britain November 25, 2020. UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via REUTERS
November 26, 2020
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain and the European Union can clinch a Brexit trade deal and the shape of one is clear but London will not sign up to an accord at any cost, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s finance minister said on Thursday.
With just five weeks left until the United Kingdom finally exits the EU’s orbit, both sides are trying to reach a trade deal that would avoid a tumultuous finale to the five-year Brexit crisis.
“With a constructive attitude and goodwill on all sides we can get there,” Sunak told Sky. “It’s clear what the shape of the deal looks like.”
“It is preferable” to get a deal, Sunak told LBC radio. “We absolutely should not be stretching for a deal at any cost, that is not the right thing to do.”
European Commission head, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Thursday that the bloc was ready for the possibility of Britain leaving the EU without a new trade accord despite “genuine progress” in the tortuous Brexit talks.
An official involved in the negotiations said a deal was possible, but not likely before the weekend at the earliest. An EU diplomat said it was more likely to come next week.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Paul Sandle; editing by Kate Holton and David Milliken)
