Two sides in Brexit talks still distanced

Biden win poses new challenge for Johnson

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says "significant differences" remain between the United Kingdom and the European Union following the latest round of Brexit deal negotiations.

Talks will resume in London on Monday, and he made the comments following a phone conversation with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday, in which he said progress had been made, but there was still ground to be made up on the topics of fishing rights and the level playing field of post-Brexit state aid for British industry.

Von der Leyen echoed Johnson's carefully chosen words, saying that "some progress had been made, but large differences remain", adding "our teams will continue working hard next week."

Johnson, who before he became prime minister famously told members of Parliament in July 2017 that "there is no plan for no deal, because we're going to get a great deal," now says he "very much hopes" a deal can be reached, but if the two sides cannot come to an agreement for trading relations following the end of the Brexit transition period, the UK is "very well prepared" to move on without one.

The whole tone of the Brexit negotiations could be significantly impacted by the victory of Joe Biden in the United States' presidential election and the withdrawal from the international scene of current President Donald Trump.

Much of the momentum behind Brexit for the last four years has been linked to the so-called "special relationship" between the UK and the US, and Johnson and Trump's personal friendship.

But Biden is of Irish ancestry and proud of his links to Ballina in County Mayo in the west, and Carlingford in County Louth on the east coast, very close to the border with Northern Ireland.

The border between Northern Ireland, part of the UK, and the Republic, which is an EU member state, is the UK's only frontier with an EU country.

Since years of violent civil conflict in Northern Ireland were brought to an end by the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998, fixtures such as border checkpoints have been removed, but Brexit could potentially see them reintroduced.

Biden has made it very clear he will not support anything that could make the Agreement what he called a "casualty of Brexit", which could mean Britain finds its options severely restricted if it wants to rely on a trade deal with the US to replace the gap left by its current links with the EU.

The situation may also not be helped by comments previously made by Johnson about former President Barack Obama, a close personal friend and political ally of Biden's.

When Obama was elected in 2008, a statue of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was removed from the Oval Office in the White House.

Johnson told the Sun newspaper "Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president's ancestral dislike of the British empire, of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender." The bust had in fact been on a personal loan to Obama's predecessor as president, George W Bush.