Detailed Brexit trade negotiations planned for this week were cancelled on Monday, with Government sources indicating that the UK is preparing the ground to seek a mutually agreed extension to the talks in the coming weeks.

As the coronavirus crisis deepened, senior Whitehall sources also confirmed that civil servants who had been working on Brexit "no deal" preparations were being actively redeployed into virus crisis management.

EU sources said hopes of conducting a full negotiation round via videolink had been crushed by the Covid-19 outbreak, which has put large swathes of Europe into effective lockdown and limited the ability of EU diplomats and officials to prepare for the talks.

Although a final decision has yet to be made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, The Telegraph understands from highly-placed sources that the Government accepts it will need to seek an extension before the June deadline expires.

The impending UK decision marks a radical shift in thinking in the upper echelons of the Government compared to even last weekend, when senior officials were resolved not to allow coronavirus to blow the talks off course.

However, the sheer speed of developments has forced a rethink on both sides of the Channel.