One reason for the UK election results was a general desire to just get Brexit over with. But it will
never be over.
But the French president warned Johnson continued regulatory harmonisation would be the price for protecting the flow of UK-EU trade. “The more ambitious the trade deal, the more we need regulatory harmonisation,” Emmanuel Macron said.
The new European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said talks on the future relationship would drag on beyond 2020, with certain parts of the deal needing to be prioritised and others left for later. EU officials could take the initiative and request an extension themselves as a way out of the problem.
