Brexit latest: Europe leader dismisses Theresa May's cash offer as 'peanuts' and demands £53bn

A European grandee has dismissed Theresa May’s cash offer to the European Union as “peanuts” amid new signs of foreign leaders playing hardball over money in Brexit talks.

European Parliament president Antonio Tajani said Britain should be offering up to £53 billion (€60 billion) rather than the £18 billion offered so far by the Prime Minister.

In talks, alarm bells rang on the British side when EU negotiators refused to agree to mutual recognition of British and EU lawyers, nurses, doctors and accountants who qualify after the UK leaves in March 2019.

The refusal was seen as a tactic to get more money out of Mrs May, but raised a question mark over the prospects for millions of young professionals.

In outspoken comments, Mr Tajani branded the UK “not realistic” in its approach to the so-called divorce bill — and echoed Margaret Thatcher’s language when she secured the British rebate.

“We need our money back, as Mrs Thatcher said 30 or 40 years ago. This is important for us,” he told BBC’s Newsnight. “We need not one euro more, not one euro less.”

Mrs May travels to Brussels tomorrow to make an address to EU leaders at a summit dinner.

Downing Street said she would not be making concessions but calling on Europe to move onto talks about trade and a vital transitional period after Brexit.

Brexit Secretary David Davis hinted that Britain’s proposal for mutual recognition of professional qualifications was being exploited by the EU when he told MPs it was a “reasonable” proposal that should be quickly agreed to. London MEP Syed Kamall, who is an interlocutor at the talks in Brussels, said the EU seemed to be using it as “leverage” in the negotiations.

“There’s no reason why it couldn’t be sorted now,” he said.

“It betrays the EU’s willingness to use people’s livelihoods as leverage in the negotiations.”

Meanwhile, a senior City figure warned that unless progress was made firms would have no choice but to move jobs to other EU countries in order to ensure they can keep trading.

London Stock Exchange Group chief executive Xavier Rolet suggested that jobs would be lost overseas unless details of a transitional period were agreed by the end of the year.