Brexit is a soap opera that has become rather dreary, Labour MEP, former prime minister and author of novels Alfred Sant told the European Parliament on Wednesday.

Speaking in a debate in Strasbourg hours after the Brexit deal between the UK and the EU was struck down by British law-makers, Dr Sant argued that the negotiations between the EU and the UK were flawed.

The UK should have been asked first to clear as a matter of principle and policy what future relationship it sought, he said. And the EU should have indicated what relationship it found acceptable. Agreement would then have been sought on this. Negotiations between the EU and the UK would have been about proceeding from the status of membership to that of the proposed new relationship.

"Instead another episode is being played in a soap opera that frankly has become rather dreary," he said. 

Dr Sant said the impasse that faces the EU and the UK results from the deeply flawed method by which the Brexit negotiations had been conducted.

The negotiations had been designed in two sequences: first to establish the conditions for an orderly withdrawal; then those of a future relationship. Aggravated by huge political fractures on the British side, and the steely determination to maintain unity on the EU side, this approach had been driving both sides towards a brick wall.

“A divorce process can only be well managed if not just the terms for a separation but also those of any alternative future relationship are mapped out. The two sets of terms are interdependent, as is shown by the ongoing controversies within the British political system regarding whether Brexit should be hard or soft,” he said.