A French MEP has said that British politicians should refrain from using “rhetoric or vocabulary” to describe the EU as adversaries, as Brexit negotiations continue.

Speaking to Sophy Ridge on Sunday about the state of the trade deals, Nathalie Loiseau warned that while efforts would be made to strike a deal, considerable differences remained. 

He said: “I am a politician, I am neither optimistic or pessimistic.

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“We will do everything we can to get a good deal, whether it is possible under this time pressure, honestly I don’t know. I will not tell you we are nearly there because there are still big divergences.”

Ms Loiseau said “clarity” was still needed on both sides for negotiations to be concluded.

“We are offering an unprecedented partnership with the UK, but this comes with clarity and commitments, and so far they are missing,” she said.

“We are partners, we are not meant to be adversaries.

“I would like to see UK politicians refraining from using rhetoric or a vocabulary as if we were adversaries fighting against each other.

“We are struggling to build a strong partnership for our future. This is what we owe to our fellow citizens on both sides.”

Yesterday it was revealed that the UK and Canada had reached a deal to continue trading under the same terms as the current European Union agreement after the Brexit transition period ends.

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said there was still much uncertainty about both the long and short-term impacts of a Brexit deal.

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“Even the best deal we could get would have been counted as one of the hardest imaginable Brexits three or four years ago when we started to look at this,” he told the Andrew Marr show, referring to economic modelling done by the IFS.

“That sort of deal will result, at best, in the economy growing less quickly than it otherwise would have done.

“It is worth saying that, especially in the context of coronavirus, there’s just such uncertainty about what the impact is going to be, and particularly the short-term impact.”