UK encourages EU to accept Brexit deal

UK business secretary Greg Clark has warned that the European Commission risks causing “significant and lasting” economic harm to families across the continent if it does not accept Britain’s current Brexit deal.

Clark met with his Austrian and Finnish counterparts this week in order to discuss the current 'soft' Brexit plan and address the contents of a leaked Brexit presentation from the Commission.

The presentation reportedly dismisses government plans for Britain to remain in the EU single market for goods and was distributed among EU officials in July, the day before Prime Minister Theresa May's Chequers agreement was signed off by her cabinet.

In the presentation EU negotiators argued that allowing the split would let Britain gain a competitive advantage and lead to a “level of erosion in the single market”.

Clark urged the EC to rethink its stance. “The UK and the EU now have the foundations and opportunity to come to a pragmatic and mutually beneficial deal. It is in everyone’s interest that an agreement is reached quickly, and No Deal is avoided,” he said.

Hardline pro-Brexit members of the Conservative Party have touted the leaked presentation as proof that Theresa May’s Chequers agreement, which they had criticised as keeping the country too close to Brussels, has already failed.

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen, a member of the European Research Group, said: “Whatever happens now, we have to accept this is not an amicable divorce. We need a clean break from the EU.”

The ERG are working on an alternative proposal to May's Chequers deal, touted as a "positive blueprint for a no-deal Brexit", with a white paper due to be published next month offering supposed advantages of a hard Brexit.

This all adds to growing concerns that such deep divisions within the government will make a no-deal Brexit "a material and growing possibility", rating agency Fitch warned this week.

"An intensification of political divisions within the UK and slow progress in negotiations with the EU means there is such a wide range of potential Brexit outcomes that no individual scenario has a high probability," Fitch said in a note to clients on Thursday.

Fitch's previous assumption that Britain would leave the EU in March next year with a transition deal in place until December 2020 but now felt this looks much more uncertain, making a smooth transition less likely and “an acrimonious and disruptive no-deal Brexit... a material and growing possibility”.

Denmark's finance minister Kristian Jensen told the BBC on Friday the window of opportunity for striking a deal that was positive for both Britain and the EU was closing.

He said May’s Chequers plan as a "realistic proposal for good negotiations", adding that more detail was needed "but I think it’s a very positive step forward and a necessary step".