No backsliding on Brexit, says UK PM

Ex-minister George Eustice said the Australia deal was 'not... very good' for the UK'

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak rubbished reports of backsliding on Brexit

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday denied that his government was seeking to row back on the UK's EU withdrawal deal, despite an apparent growing backlash against Brexit.

Brexit-supporter Sunak told business leaders that life outside the European Union was "already delivering enormous benefits and opportunities".

But he added: "Let me be unequivocal about this: under my leadership, the United Kingdom will not pursue any relationship with Europe that relies on alignment with EU laws."

Brexit saw the UK withdraw from the European single market and customs union, while free movement between member states and the jurisdiction of European courts ended.

Sunak's comments follow a Sunday Times report that "senior government figures" were planning to "put Britain on the path towards a Swiss-style relationship" with the EU.

The report, and comments last week by finance minister Jeremy Hunt, who voted to remain in the EU, that he was eager to remove the "vast majority" of trade barriers with the EU.

"The government has got to focus on what it needs to do, rather than trying to reopen a settled debate about Europe," former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith told The Sun. 

The backlash stirred memories of the febrile aftermath of the referendum about how best to deliver Brexit.

He won a landslide election victory in December 2019 on a vow to "get Brexit done", having negotiated his own 2019 divorce deal.

Amid decades-high inflation and forecasts of its longest ever recession, a new YouGov poll last week suggested 56 percent of people now think it was wrong to leave the EU.

The Office for Budget Responsibility watchdog assessed that Brexit had had a "significant adverse impact" on UK trade, in comments backed by the Bank of England.

The gloomy economic news was compounded by London losing its prized status as the biggest European stock market to Paris.

But an agreement with Washington is unlikely anytime soon.

Former environment minister George Eustice said last week that the agreement he helped finalise with Australia almost a year ago was "not actually a very good deal for the UK".

In Brussels, the European Commission said: "Our relationship with the United Kingdom is based on the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement."

jj/phz/gil

...