Britain’s chances of opening trade talks with Europe this October appear to be disappearing as the President of the European Parliament announced he would ask for an assessment of “sufficient progress” to be put back from October to December.

Antonio Tajani said he will ask the European Council to postpone its formal assessment of the Brexit talks until the quarterly December EU leader’s summit - that would be a three-month slippage from the original target of October.

Mr Tajani's comments came as former European Council president Herman van Rompuy warned that that the UK had “zero” chance of meeting the EU’s “sufficient progress” target by October.