THERESA May has brushed aside calls for the UK to settle its Brexit bill before embarking on trade talks as she countered Brussels criticisms of her expectations, saying she was "not in a different galaxy".
The Prime Minister stressed how EU leaders knew that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" and claimed she was "confident" of securing a good Brexit deal.
Her comments came after the other 27 EU leaders agreed their final negotiating guidelines, including an insistence on a ''phased'' approach which would put the rights of EU citizens and the disputed "divorce bill" as part of the first tranche of issues to be dealt with before trade talks begin.
Mrs May told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: "What they are very clear about is, yes, they do want to start discussions about money. I'm very clear that at the end of the negotiations we need to be clear not just about the Brexit arrangement, the exit, how we withdraw, but also what our future relationship is going to be."
Pressed on whether she would commit to paying a divorce bill - some Eurocrats have suggested it could be as high as £50 billion - before Britain left the bloc, she said: "The EU has also said that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."
Donald Tusk, President of the European Council of leaders, has previously said that reciprocal guarantees, which also provided certainty for British ex-pats living on the continent, were foremost among issues to be addressed.
"There are things we absolutely agree on should be early in those discussions, the position of EU citizens living here in the UK and the position of UK citizens living in those 27 European countries, absolutely we agree should be in the discussions," said the PM.
She also hit back at reported claims that EU leaders said she was "in a different galaxy" after her meetings Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission.
On Saturday, the EU27 took just four minutes to agree a hardline stance on their Brexit negotiating strategy at a summit in Brussels.
Mr Juncker and Michel Barnier, the chief European Union Brexit negotiator, who also attended last week's meeting with the PM in Downing Street, told EU leaders she had used it to demand a “detailed outline” of a future free trade deal be in place before the UK agreed to pay any money to Brussels as part of the Brexit divorce deal.
One EU diplomat said: “This was a rather incredible demand. It seemed as if it came from a parallel reality.”
But Mrs May told the Marr show: "I'm not in a different galaxy," adding: "What this shows and what some of the other comments we've seen coming from other European leaders show is that there are going to be times when these negotiations are going to be tough. That's why you need strong and stable leadership in order to conduct those negotiations and get the best deal for Britain."
Meantime, Labour's Chuka Umunna, a leading supporter of Open Britain, which campaigns for close ties with the EU, has written a letter to the PM, demanding she answer a number of questions about her Brexit strategy she is refusing to answer, claiming she wants to "subvert scrutiny" despite her assertion that the June 8 poll is a Brexit election.
The London MP said her election appearances were “designed to avoid examination of your Brexit strategy, which is built on adopting the lies of the Vote Leave campaign and perpetuating the delusion that Brexit is cost-free".
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