The government has “lost the plot” over Brexit negotiations, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said on Friday morning.

Ms Nandy told BBC Radio 4’s Today show: “We are watching what is happening in negotiations with an increasing sense that the government has just lost the plot.

“As David Gauke, who was a former Cabinet minister, said, the government’s position is now that it’s intolerable to accept tariffs and quotas, so they want to leave on terms that immediately introduce tariffs and quotas. It just seems absolutely absurd.”

Asked if Labour would vote for a post-Brexit trade agreement in the Commons, Ms Nandy said: “It depends what the deal is. We want to see a deal. We would be very minded to support it if it’s in the interests of Britain.”

More from Oliver Dowden’s BBC Breakfast interview, as the culture secretary insisted businesses have been warned “for a long time” that no deal was a possible outcome of the Brexit negotiations.

Mr Dowden told the daily news programme: “We have been saying to people for a long time, including businesses, there are two possible outcomes at the end of this transition period.

“One – and I very much hope we manage to achieve this – is that we have a free trading agreement similar to that which Canada has, or if we don’t achieve that we would have an Australian-style WTO rules.”

He added: “In both of those cases it would require changes because we wouldn’t be part of the single market, we wouldn’t be part of the customs union.”

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden has said he “does not accept” predictions by Tesco that no deal will see prices on EU goods rise by 3 to 5 per cent

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Mr Dowden said calculations by the environment minister said at most price rises would be 2 per cent.

“All of this goes to show that we would much rather have a free trade deal,” he said. “It wouldn’t just be us that would be worse off by not having a free trade deal, exactly the same thing would apply to the Irish who export large amounts of beef to us.”

He added: “Or, for example, the Germans in respect of cars they send us.”

However, taking a more stern approach with regards to the EU’s demands, Mr Dowden said that the government “will not accept is this ratcheting up that if the EU decides to impose fresh regulations that have nothing to do with us we have to then match them or face the consequences”. 

“They don’t demand that of Canada,” he added.

There is a “significant and unacceptable” risk that busy freight ports in Wales will face delays and disruption because of the government’s failure to prepare them for Brexit, MPs have warned.

The port at Holyhead on Anglesey is the UK’s second largest roll-on/roll-off operation and, along with the smaller Fishguard and Pembroke docks, faces huge changes after the transition to Brexit, said the Commons Welsh Affairs Committee.

The group has now voiced “deep concern” that no inland facilities have been prepared for the possible backlog of trucks waiting to be processed.

Our political editor, Andrew Woodcock, has the full story:

Nicola Sturgeon has today revealed she is worried that Boris Johnson is “actually now almost planning for” a no-deal Brexit.

The Scottish first minister told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour she thought the chances of a deal happening before the end of the Brexit transition period were now “almost vanishingly small”, adding: “They’re not non-existent, and I remain hopeful I guess, because no-deal would be catastrophic.”

“But I’m starting to worry not just that no-deal is now the overwhelming likelihood, but that Boris Johnson is actually now almost planning for that,” she said.

“Exactly a year ago right now, the UK general election took place, and he fought that election to be elected as prime minister, basically saying that his deal with the European Union was off and ready. He later said that no-deal would be a failure of statecraft, and it was a million-to-one chance against that happening.

“Now, today, he’s saying it is very highly probable.”

She added: “It seems to me that all of that is because Boris Johnson is failing to grasp or accept that responsible, independent countries in the modern world have to collaborate and work with others, and at times pool sovereignty for the greater good, for the greater well-being and prosperity of their populations.”

Ms Sturgeon also referred to the fact Scotland never actually voted to be taken out of the EU – which it will be automatically, as part of the UK. She said: “I think he’s about to take the UK down a very, very damaging road, and for Scotland that is made all the worse, because we didn’t vote for it.”

Scotland’s leader also took the time to contrast Mr Johnson’s mishandling of Brexit with the way she intends to get through another Scottish Independence vote.  

She told Ms Amanpour that she and those arguing for Scotland’s divorce from the UK “have to persuade the majority to choose that option, and we have to do that in an open and frank way recognising the challenges as well as the massive opportunities”.

Bringing it back to the Brexit debate, Ms Sturgeon said she must “do it in a way that is the polar opposite of how Boris Johnson and his colleagues argued the case for Brexit, which was to give nobody any detail and to deny all of the challenges”. 

“Which is why, three-and-a-half years later, he faces the prospect of crashing out at the end of the transition period with no-deal, because he never levelled with people about the realities of Brexit and the trade-offs and the issues that had to be resolved along the way,” she said.

Boris Johnson’s constant assurance that the UK will “prosper mightily” with no trade deal – because, in his words, we will be leaving “on Australian terms” – is a reference to the fact Australia trades with the EU on World Trade Organisation terms. The same will likely happen to the UK if no deal is agreed.

The UK currently trades with the EU as part of its trading system – the customs union and the single market. This means there are, right now, no tariffs on goods traded between the two nations, plus minimal border checks. 

This will end when the Brexit transition period ends on 31 December. 

While the WTO system works for some countries (Australia, the US, China, Brazil), it will be harder for the UK as it trades so much more with the EU than any other other nation. It is worth noting that that in 2019, the EU accounted for 43 per cent of UK exports and 51 per cent of UK imports.

So inaccurate is the prime minister’s idealistic outlook, that Australia’s former PM, Malcolm Turnbull, has warned the UK to “be careful” and, more plainly, that: “Australia’s relationship with the EU is not one, from a trade point, that Britain would want, frankly.” 

My colleague, Andy Gregory, has more on Mr Turnbull’s message here:

With just three weeks to go until the end of the transition period, Boris Johnson said he had ordered his ministers to step up preparations for no deal. The warning comes after the PM failed to secure concessions during a three-hour face-to-face meeting with the European Commission president in Brussels on Wednesday night.

“What I’ve said to our negotiators is that we’ve got to keep going, and we’ll go the extra mile – and we will. And I will go to Brussels, I will go to Paris, I will go to Berlin, I will go to wherever to try and get this home and get a deal,” he told reporters on Thursday night, following a meeting with his Cabinet.

But he added: “We’re not stopping talks, we’ll continue to negotiate but looking at where we are I do think it’s vital that everyone now gets ready for that Australian option [no deal].”

Our policy correspondent, Jon Stone, reports:

Hello, and welcome to The Independent’s rolling coverage of the Brexit negotiations.