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Business Green: The Prime Minister Boris Johnson sought to break away from EU environmental and social standards after Brexit, demanding Brussels rewrite previously-agreed terms committing the UK a ‘level playing field’ with Europe on trade and regulations, according to reports.

During talks with Brussels last week over a post-Brexit trade agreement, Johnson’s Brexit negotiation team made demands to allow the UK to substantially diverge from EU standards after leaving the bloc, according to an EU diplomatic note seen by the Financial Times.

After taking over as PM earlier in the summer Johnson suggested laws and regulations to deliver environmental standards “will potentially diverge from those of the EU”.

It marked a key change in tone from Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May. She brokered terms with the EU in the political declaration last year which provides a non-binding commitment to “non-regression in the level of environmental protection” and retaining EU environmental principles after Brexit.

It emerged yesterday that Johnson’s negotiators sought to renege on that commitment, last week demanding the EU instead agree to a “best in class free trade agreement” leaving the UK free to set its own regulatory standards after Brexit.  BusinessGreen contacted Downing Street for a comment and was passed to Defra, which was preparing a comment at the time of going to press.

But a government spokesperson told the FT “there would need to be some consequent changes to the political declaration to reflect the future goal of a Free Trade Agreement if we are to reach a deal”. “We have an unrivalled track record of promoting high standards and that will not change after we leave the EU,” the spokesperson added.  Johnson has repeatedly insisted the government is committed to “world class” environmental standards after leaving the EU.

The EU has made clear it is willing to start work towards agreeing an “ambitious and wide-ranging free trade agreement” but only if there are “sufficient guarantees for a level playing field” on regulatory, environmental, social and trade matters.

Johnson’s latest demands to break away from EU standards were therefore seen as “tantamount to a non-enforceable level playing field mechanism” by EU negotiators, according to the note. “The UK has made it clear in various instances that it would like to diverge from the EU regulatory framework,” it reportedly states.

The leaked note will heighten concerns among green businesses and campaigners over the UK’s future trading standards and regulations, just as the rising threat of a no-deal Brexit looms at the end of October and increasing likelihood of a General Election this autumn.

It has been estimated the UK derives around 80 per cent of its environmental laws and regulations from the EU, and green campaigners have long been pushing the government to provide sufficient guarantees it will maintain these standards and ensure they are properly enforced after Brexit.

Shaun Spiers, executive director at think tank Green Alliance, said dropping the UK dropping its commitment to a level playing field with the EU “has huge implications for environmental and social standards”.

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