Britain will be treated “like Greece” and can expect to face a united front from the European Union’s 27 remaining countries in next year’s Brexit negotiations, the prime minister of Malta warned yesterday.

Joseph Muscat, whose country will hold the EU presidency when Brexit negotiations kick-off early next year, promised a hardline against Britain that would ensure the UK left the talks with an “inferior” deal to its current position inside the EU.

“Any deal has to be a fair deal, but an inferior deal,” Mr Muscat said in an interview with Politico Europe magazine adding that the format of the talks would be “more or less like what happened with Greece” during its 2015 bailout negotiations.