LONDON, Sept. 7 (CGTN) - Britain will not blink first in Brexit trade negotiations with the European Union and is not scared of a no-deal exit, the country's top Brexit negotiator David Frost warned the bloc on Sunday.
Britain left the EU on January 31 but talks have so far made little headway on agreeing a new trade deal with the bloc by the time a status-quo transition arrangement ends in December. Should they part their ways without a withdrawal agreement, both would be hemorrhaged by far-reaching consequences.
"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," negotiator Frost told the British newspaper The Daily Mail on Sunday.
"So a lot of what we are trying to do this year is to get them to realize that we mean what we say and they should take our position seriously," he was quoted as saying.
Informal talks this week between Frost and EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier failed to find a breakthrough, dimming the eighth round of formal negotiations that are due to begin on Tuesday in London. The main bone of contention is Britain's insistence that it gets full autonomy over state aid and its demands over fishing.
Both sides want to hammer out a deal by the end of next week, so that there will be enough time for politicians on both sides to sign off on it before December 31. But Britain says the EU is dragging its feet in talks and has failed to fully accept that it is now an independent country.
"We are not going to be a client state. We are not going to compromise on the fundamentals of having control over our own laws," Frost told the Daily Mail, adding "We are not going to accept level playing field provisions that lock us in to the way the EU do things."
"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," Frost said.
He said a lot of preparation had been made for a possible exit without a trade deal.
"I don't think that we are scared of this at all," Frost warned. "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."
