UK threatens to return radioactive waste to EU without nuclear deal

Brexit department warns EU counterparts it will 'return waste to its country of origin' if an agreement on nuclear cooperation cannot be reached

Britain has warned the EU that it could return boatloads of radioactive waste back to the continent if the Brexit talks fail to deliver an agreement on nuclear regulation.

In what is being taken in Brussels as a thinly veiled threat, a paper setting out the UK position for the negotiations stresses the right "to return radioactive waste " to its country of origin" should negotiations collapse.