No country leader would be right to accept any proposed trade terms by the European Union (EU), British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, triggering beliefs that a trade deal between the bloc and the United Kingdom will never happen

Johnson was quoted as telling members of the parliament (MP) that a trade agreement was there to be done but accused the EU of insisting on terms “which no prime minister could accept.”

“Our friends in the EU are currently insisting that if they pass a new law in future with which we in this country do not comply or don’t follow suit, then they want the automatic right to punish us and to retaliate,” he said.

“And secondly, they’re saying the UK should be the only country in the world not to have sovereign control over its fishing waters. I don’t believe that those are terms that any prime minister of this country should accept.”

The statement came hours before Johnson’s flight to Brussels to meet European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in what was supposed to be a last-ditch to strike a deal before the transition period expires.

When asked by Labor leader Keir Starmer about prospects over a no-deal Brexit, Johnson said that the UK would be “a magnet for overseas investments” whatever the outcome.

“There will be jobs created in this country, throughout the whole of the UK, not just in spite of Brexit but because of Brexit,” he said.

“Indeed, this country is going to become a magnet for overseas investment; indeed, it already is, and will remain so.”

Johnson said earlier that the UK would prosper even without a trade deal even as it would agree to a trade term as with Canada and Australia.

It can be recalled that the EU and UK, through chief negotiators Michel Barnier and David Frost, failed to strike a trade agreement amid lingering issues on fishing, business competition rules, and governance of any deal.

Last month, the EU proposed to the UK an 18% return in sales from fishes caught in British waters, which the UK disagreed with.

With European vessels catching roughly 650 million euros worth of fish from UK waters every year, the proposed amount would give the UK roughly 117 million euros yearly.

The UK has until December 31 to follow trade rules by the bloc, after which trading between the two parties would automatically adopt the rules of the World Trade Organization where tariffs will be imposed against each other’s goods.

Photo from Flickr