The FT are reporting that Brussels have rejected Johnson’s changes to internal market bill

EU rejects the UK Internal Market Bill – of course!

On Thursday Boris Johnson’s Conservative government published their proposed changes to the internal market bill. The bill has received parliamentary approval (House of Commons) but is set to go to the House of Lords to see if the bill is passed into law. The bill would let the UK rewrite certain parts of the agreement between the EU and UK which has been agreed earlier. The last bill was voted on but it seems Boris Johnson wants to make changes as he stated changes to the bill were“necessary to stop foreign power from breaking up our country.”.

An official present at the meeting commented saying Brussels was clear that “the bill is unchanged and still illegal”. The official went on to reiterate the point that “everyone agrees the objections are unchanged,”

The UK are set to leave the EU with or without a deal by the end of the year and Prime Minister Johnson has stated if an agreement is not made by the middle of next month both sides might as well walk away. Next week the saga continues with the next round of talks scheduled for next week. It seems the odds of a deal still remain around 50/50 at this point but there was some softening of the tone at least with European Commission President von der Leyen stating she was “convinced” a deal is possible. Investors and traders will be watching events next week closely.