ruin any chance of progress. This week’s meetings are understood to have produced no progress on the core issues of the Northern Ireland border and customs arrangement, with last year’s businesslike start to discussions having given way to bitter behind-the-scenes briefings. A senior EU official said the UK still
Brexit negotiations have soured after months of deadlock, with EU officials tearing into Britain’s “fantasy” negotiating strategy and warning that Theresa May’s latest customs plan would
lacked negotiating positions on a wide variety of issues
and was “chasing the fantasy of denying the consequences
of Brexit in a given policy area”. Another EU official
told The Independent they had
been warned that there would probably be no progress by
the June meeting of the European Council.