LONDON (UK) – British finance minister Rishi Sunak has said he is seeing genuine progress in Brexit talks with the European Union. However, he said that it would be better to not have a bad trade deal than tie Britain’s hands in the future.
Sunak was thought to be one of the leading voices in the cabinet who wanted a free trade deal with the EU.
He told the Sunday Times that he hoped Britain and the European Union would secure an agreement.
He said, “Every day I am reviewing bits of text, so there is genuine progress. Certainly, it would be preferable to have a deal.”
But he added: “The major impact on our economy is the coronavirus. It’s absolutely not (a question of doing) a deal at any price.
“If we don’t get a deal, why is that? It is because they are refusing to compromise on what are some completely reasonable and very transparent principles that we’ve laid out from the beginning. We are not asking for … super-special treatment.”
Sunak gave the interview ahead of a spending review on Wednesday when he will set out the government’s spending over the next year.
He said he hoped that, by next spring, he would be able to move beyond the current need to support the economy and jobs. He pinned hopes that he would be able to consider how he could return the public finances to a sustainable level.