'Ongoing problems' now block gifts

Further knock-ons from the EU threat to invoke Article 16 -- and not before time:

The European Union is expected to ask for more time to ratify the Brexit trade deal, the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator has said as he laid the blame for continuing UK-EU tensions at the door of Brussels.

David Frost claimed that a resolution to now strained relations required a “different spirit” from the EU, in comments made less than 48 hours before a crunch meeting between Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove and a senior European commission figure.

Frost blamed tensions on the bloc struggling to get used to a “genuinely independent actor in its neighbourhood”...He also told the committee that the UK had been told informally that day that the EU would be seeking an extension to the ratification of the trade deal between both sides...“We have heard informally from the commission today that we are likely to get a formal request to extend the two-month period that is in the treaty for ratification on the EU side,” Frost said.

 

Both Gove and Frost were forced to deny that the UK was engaged in a tit for tat struggle with the EU over the recognition of diplomatic representatives after a near-year-long row about the UK’s refusal to grant full diplomatic status of the EU mission to the UK.

A vivid example of the ongoing problems surrounding the Northern Ireland protocol and its impact on movement of goods was put to Gove by Lord Faulkner, who said he had received a letter from a heritage railway in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland.

The railway was due to receive something as a gift from a counterpart in Devon and had approached several delivery firms. Of those who replied, two had said they were not accepting any deliveries between Britain and Northern Ireland any more while another provided a list of requirements.