Sunday 02 February 2020 12:59 pm | Updated: Sunday 02 February 2020 1:01 pm

Brexit: Boris Johnson set to reject regulatory alignment in EU trade negotiations

Under Theresa May, the plan was to limit EU migration at this point to those with a job offer in the UK with a salary of more than £30,000-a-year.

Boris Johnson’s government has set out a tough opening stance ahead of trade talks with the European Union, indicating it will reject any trade deal that includes “high alignment” with the bloc.

“We are taking back control of our laws, so we are not going to have high alignment with the EU, legislative alignment with their rules,” said Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

The “issue of alignment” is “not even in the negotiating room”, he told Sky News, adding that agreeing to such an agreement would “defeat the point of Brexit”.

“But we’ll want to cooperate and we expect the EU to follow through on their commitment to a Canada-style free trade agreement,” he continued.

In a speech tomorrow, the prime minister is expected to outline his vision for Britain’s future relationship with the EU following its formal withdrawal from the bloc on Friday.

Business groups within the City and exporters across the UK have long been lobbying for any future UK-EU trade deal to ensure near-frictionless trade in goods and services across the channel.

Johnson is due to tell the European Union he is prepared to accept customs checks at the border if he cannot secure the sort of UK-EU trade deal he is aiming for.

Asked whether Number 10 expected UK companies to have to prepare for fresh border checks, Raab said: “The agreement that we made with the EU was to avoid all of that, and I am sure they will want to live up to the undertakings they have made just as we’d expect to do the same.”

Late last night a government source said if Brussels would not offer a Canada-style trade deal, Johnson’s negotiating team would instead try and sign a looser trade agreement, similar to the EU’s ties with Australia.

“There are only two likely outcomes in negotiation – a free trade deal like Canada or a looser arrangement like Australia – and we are happy to pursue both,” the source told the Telegraph.

Former European Council President Donald Tusk said that a year was long enough for the UK and EU to reach a trade deal.

“One year is enough to finalise our negotiations,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr.

Tusk also said that the EU was the “bogeyman or a whipping boy” in the British narrative during the referendum campaign, with the bloc portrayed as being “responsible for every failure”.