UK officials seek draft agreements with EU before triggering article 50

Her remarks were condemned by the Tory leadership candidate and Brexit supporter Liam Fox as “bizarre, stupid, preposterous and ridiculous”. He said the commission’s view of how the negotiations would be conducted would have to be handed over to the elected national politicians at the head of the council of ministers.

He said it was ridiculous to think that French and German politicians would have to go into their national elections next year telling their electorates they do not know how much French wine or German cars they are going to be able to export. He said the commissioner’s stance was doubly bizarre since she had admitted her timetable and interpretation of the procedure would damage the economies of the EU.

There had been an expectation that Brexit talks would run in parallel with one set of talks negotiating the specific terms of the UK exit – a partly backward-looking technical exercise – with a more forward-looking set of talks on the terms of UK access to the vast EU single market, and specifically the terms of a trade deal, including tariff barriers.

Malmström said that after Brexit, the UK would become a “third country” in EU terms, meaning trade would be carried out based on WTO rules until a new deal was complete.