No Brexit trade deal yet as serious issues remain, British minister says
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Britain and the European Union have still not clinched a Brexit trade deal as serious issues remain unresolved that prevent Prime Minister Boris Johnson signing up to an accord, a British minister said on Wednesday.
“I’m still reasonably optimistic but there’s no news to report to you this morning,” Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick told Sky News.
“There’s still the same serious areas of disagreement … we’re working through those issues, our negotiators will keep going,” he said. “But at the moment there isn’t sufficient progress. It isn’t a deal that the prime minister feels he can sign us up to.”
He also added that he hoped trucks would start crossing into France on Wednesday after Paris lifted its ban on freight coming from Britain because of a new strain of coronavirus.
“Well I hope that this morning, you’ll see people and HGVs crossing the Channel at the short straits,” Jenrick told Sky News television.
“We’re putting in place the infrastructure. So the armed forces will be doing that (COVID testing) in the first instance to help us to set that up and to get through some of the backlog that you’ve seen.” France agreed late on Tuesday to lift its ban and Britain said it would begin handing out tests at multiple locations on Wednesday, but cautioned that the process would take time.
