LABOUR’S shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer called yesterday for an emergency round of talks between the government and the EU after Brussels lamented a “disturbing deadlock” on Britain’s “divorce settlement.”

The size of Britain’s “Brexit bill” was not even discussed during this week’s negotiations, the EU’s top negotiator Michel Barnier said after the end of a fifth round of formal talks.

The bloc maintains that Britain will need to pay towards the cost of obligations the EU enters into while it is a member. Daniel Gros of the Centre for European Policy Studies in Belgium has calculated such a bill at around €10 billion (£9bn), based on the fact that the EU has net liabilities of €72bn (£64bn) and Britain has a 14 per cent share in its budget, but Brussels chiefs have been holding out for sums as high as €100bn (£90bn).