According to the Sunday Telegraph, Whitehall sources are prepared for no equivalence between Britain’s financial sector and the EU’s single market.

Equivalence is the recognition that a sector meets a country or trading body’s standards of regulation, which the UK has granted to the EU in 28 different sectors.

The EU has so far refused to reciprocate equivalence to Britain’s financial sectors, with the exception of clearing, and has demanded details of the UK plans to diverge from the blocs rules.

One Whitehall insider told the outlet: “The situation was always going to be that we weren’t locked into their evolving rulebook.

“It was always going to be thin.”