Boris Johnson has called on Emmanuel Macron to give ground on fisheries, warning the French president that Britain will have to walk away from Brexit talks if he will not budge.
The prime minister and Mr Macron spoke on the telephone Saturday with seemingly just days to go for an agreement on a future trade settlement to be struck.
Mr Johnson told the key EU leader he would “explore every avenue” to secure a deal, but was prepared to leave the Brexit transition period at the end of the year on Australian-style terms with Brussels if necessary.
France is a leading member of the “coastal eight” group which is said to be digging in hardest in talks, insisting that EU countries should maintain exactly the same rights to fish in British waters.
One senior government source told the Sunday Times that position was “ludicrous”.
But some British officials are reported to think Mr Macron might prefer to blame the UK for the failure of negotiations than force his fishermen to accept reduced quotas.
A source close to the UK consultation team told the Sunday Times that Michel Barnier, the EU negotiator, was “playing for time” and warned that by next weekend the UK will have to prepare for no deal if there is no progress this week.
“We need an end to the attempts to manipulate the process that the EU side have unsuccessfully used to try to generate tactical advantage in the negotiation,” the source told the paper.
“It’s absurd that the EU are using such obvious tactics to filibuster and run down the clock. Ultimately we must stop treading water, otherwise we will simply drown.”
UK chief negotiator David Frost told MPs last week that the UK was prepared to show flexibility on fisheries.
He said: “I think that there are a number of moving parts in this discussion, one of them is transition and another is the quota numbers.”
A transition would mean EU fishermen having continued access to UK waters for a period of time, thought to be in the region of three years.