The having your cake and eating it line, associated with former UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson, winds up the EU like nothing else. Above all it drives a determination in Brussels that a Brexit outcome will not be like that. The return of the phrase to UK Prime Minister Theresa May via a tweet and a cherries and cake reference by the President of the EU Council, Donald Tusk, was interpreted as offensive and summed up what was a difficult week in the Brexit negotiations.

Conservative conference

Meanwhile, the UK Prime Minster was in the US ahead of her party conference, which starts this weekend. Again, she spoke of the trade possibilities between the UK and US after Brexit, with scant attention to the realities of what a future deal would involve. Aside from aligning with EU rules and standards, the UK has already committed to maintaining EU production standards irrespective of what shape Brexit takes. This has already been shot down by the US overseas trade department, which a year ago advised the UK that the need to break the alignment with EU standards in order to progress trade discussions with the US.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May with Donald Tusk, President of European Council.

Returning to having the cake and eating it theme, it is impossible to see how the UK will have meaningful trade negotiations with the US without aligning to its standards on food production, including use of hormones in beef and use of acid to wash chicken carcases. This issue was the main cause of stalemate in the US-EU negotiations, or TTIP as it was commonly known, even before President Trump took office and followed through on his promise to cease the negotiation.

Time running out

On this day six months from now, the UK will be out of the EU yet nobody has any real knowledge of how a future trading relationship will shape up. This applies particularly in Westminster, where the minority Conservative Party government has deep internal division on the extent of the break it wants from the EU. The opposition Labour Party isn’t much better and has set a series of tests that almost certainly will not be met as a justification for opposing any deal the Government may agree.

Negotiators are pondering over various forms of fudge that could allow the EU and UK interpret an arrangement as being what they want from the Brexit exercise

And so the uncertainty prevails. On one hand, the UK is determined to make a clean break from the EU rules and institutions yet maintain trading relationships. On the other hand, the EU is adamant that any future arrangement for trade will not be as attractive as the present membership position. In the middle of this lies Ireland, and particularly the agricultural sector, which will be the most affected group of any in any of the EU 27 countries should a means not be found of bringing what appear the conflicted interests of the UK and EU together.

More than the Irish border

Solving this conundrum is much more than dealing with the controversial issue of the border on the island of Ireland. If the proposed backstop arrangement was to overcome political opposition it would solve the issue of trade in agricultural produce on the island of Ireland. However, that is a solution to only a fraction of the problem, as the bulk of trade from the island of Ireland is with Britain. However, the EU is opposed to extending the favourable backstop arrangement to the rest of the UK apart from Northern Ireland.

Hence, the impasse prevails. Negotiators are pondering over various forms of fudge that could allow the EU and UK interpret an arrangement as being what they want from the Brexit exercise. Yet, as we discovered in Austria last week, ultimately it is political leaders that have to face the camera and sell any deal.

The belief still prevails that some solution will be found as the consequences, best illustrated by the technical papers being released by the UK on what a no deal would mean, present such a horrendous picture. For farmers, the prospect of no deal or a deal where the UK is free to trade globally as it wishes on agricultural produce is the most horrendous picture of all.