You can read @MichelBarnier remarks on Round 7 of the UK-EU trade talks here (FR and EN).

Tl;dr. This sentence - paring back the 'ask' won't move EU stance on a need for level playing field - like it or not /1

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_20_1511
The UK is deeply frustrated by this.

Why should it sign up to any such guarantees for a super-skinny, nay, emaciated, FTA?

But the EU have been banging on about this since the start - recall the March 2018 mandate.

Nothing if not consistent /2

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/33458/23-euco-art50-guidelines.pdf
I wrote something quite similar myself three weeks ago - this danger that the EU and UK talk across each other until it is too late. /4 https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1288857481859477504?s=20
Ultimately, with @BorisJohnson away camping, this round was always going to be limited.

But there is now a lot of pressure on the Sept 7-12 Round. If positions remain fixed then you'll start to hear alarm bells ringing.

Some will see that as usual part of process. But.../5
There is a lot to get done...and for all the macro political forces pointing towards the need for a deal, there is a world where @BorisJohnson convinces himself that, given the narrowing gap between what a deal and no deal delivers, the 'base' will warm to a 'no deal'. /6
That would be a catastrophic failure of statecraft.

A 'no deal' isn't an endstate in itself. It's a form of purgatory from which the UK will have to emerge.

How any government could justify willfully making people poorer is beyond me. But that doesn't mean it cant happen. /7
I still bet on a deal, optimist that I am. I'm not sure @BorisJohnson
has the stomach for a cliff-dive.

But we've seen with the A-Level fiasco the capacity for this government to ignore expert warnings and sleepwalk into messes of its own making.

So perhaps I'm just naive. ENDS
PS..Scotland might be another reason senior figures like @michaelgove might counsel against a no deal. This statement from Michael Russell @Feorlean gives you a taster of what's to come...
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