Brexit negotiators 'in cloud cuckoo land', says man who negotiated Britain's EU rebate

Sir Brian Unwin, a former Treasury mandarin, said David Davis had misread the situation

The Government’s chief minister in charge of Brexit is living in “cloud cuckloo land” over negotiations with the EU, the man who negotiated the UK’s EU rebate has said.

Sir Brian Unwin, a former Treasury mandarin who was part of Margaret Thatcher’s budget rebate negotiation team, said ministers had a “horrific” job ahead of them.

Sir Brian suggested that Mr Davis, the Secretary of State of Leaving the European Union, was subject to “a misreading of the situation” and that “unconstructive” talk by top UK figures was jeopardising a good deal.

“They have to rein back some of the very hard, unconstructive, and unrealistic talk that has been current among some of the senior ministers at the moment,” he told the BBC.

“For example, I think Mr Davis said that he believes the negotiating odds were unbelievably, heavily stacked in our favour. Of course that’s absolutele nonsense, he’s living in cloud cuckoo land”.

Sir Brian, formerly a president of the European Investment Bank and chairman of the board of HM Customs and Excise, served under both Conservative and Labour governments after joining the civil service in the 1960s.

As deputy secretary at the Treasury in charge of international affairs the civil servant was tasked with solving “the budget problem”.

He attended numerous Ecofin council meetings, European Council meetings, and was in the room at the Fontainebleau conference with Ms Thatcher when the rebate was won.

“My own feeling – I have many contacts right around the EU – and my own impression from the people who contact me now is that opinion is hardening,” he told the BBC.

“They do not want the integrity and future of the European Union to be put at risk by Brexit. In particular, they do not want the United Kingdom to emerge with advantages that might encourage other member states to think of leaving.

“I really do think that the language that the present government is thinking of using needs to be tempered if they are to have a successful deal.”

The minister Mr Davis has previously suggested that European countries would want to negotiate trade deals with the UK because they had a trade surplus with it.

Mr Davis admitted today in the House of Commons that the UK faces a “cliff edge” if it misses its two-year deadline for striking a fresh EU trade deal after Article 50 is triggered