Britain left the EU on January 31 but talks have so far made little headway on agreeing a new trade deal for when a status-quo transition arrangement ends in December. Negotiator David Frost told the Mail on Sunday:
"We came in after a government and negotiating team that had blinked and had its bluff called at critical moments and the EU had learned not to take our word seriously. So a lot of what we are trying to do this year is to get them to realise that we mean what we say and they should take our position seriously.Talks are due to resume in London on Tuesday but they have stalled over Britain's insistence that it have full autonomy over state aid and its demands over fishing. Britain says the EU is dragging its feet in talks and has failed to fully accept that it is now an independent country.
"That's what being an independent country is about, that's what the British people voted for and that's what will happen at the end of the year, come what may."
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the week ahead would be a wake-up call for the EU. "We've got to a position where there's only two points really that are holding us back," he told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme.
UK fisheries had been "pretty much decimated" as a result of EU membership, he said, and the bloc wanted to keep British access to its waters "permanently low". "That can't be right," he said.
On state aid, Raab said Britain had led the charge against government intervention since the 1980s, but the issue was "an absolutely critical element of policy making".
At heart, Britain is pressing one of the EU's most sensitive buttons - the fear that a post-Brexit Britain could become a much more agile, deregulated free-market competitor on its border by using selective state aid.
Said one EU diplomat:
"More and more people have come to the conclusion that Brexit ideology trumps Brexit pragmatism in the UK government.Frost said a lot of preparation had been done for a possible exit without a trade deal:
"If the UK really wanted to jump off the Brexit cliff edge for ideological reasons, there would be no way for the EU to stop this. If, on the other hand, the UK's approach became more pragmatic and realistic, there would probably be a good chance to save the negotiations and agree on a deal."
"I don't think that we are scared of this at all. If we can reach an agreement that regulates trade like Canada's, great. If we can't, it will be an Australian-like trading agreement and we are fully ready for that."
The people of the UK are so lucky (smart) they are not part of the EU anymore.
The EU is a (money grabbing) FASCIST system.