Welcome to the Guardian's weekly Brexit briefing, a summary of developments as the UK stumbles to the EU door marked "exit". If you would like to receive it as a weekly early morning email, please sign up here. You can listen to our latest Brexit Means podcast here. Also: producing the Guardian's independent, in-depth journalism takes a lot of time and money. We do it because we believe our perspective matters – and it may be your perspective too. If you value our Brexit coverage, please become a Guardian Supporter and help make our future more secure. Thank you. The big picture At this stage of negotiations of this magnitude, you might expect the two sides not to be singing from the same hymn-sheet. But what's more alarming is that they don't appear to be singing the same hymn – or even be in the same church. The third round of Brexit talks came to an end last week with Britain and the EU at an impasse – and the chief negotiators, David Davis and Michel Barnier, unable to agree whether any progress had been made and even trading verbal blows. Davis accused the EU of a lack of "flexibility and imagination"; Barnier said the UK's approach was "nostalgic and unrealistic". How did it come to this? Because the two sides have radically different views of what the talks are for. Britain is after a deal: essentially, it wants to leave the EU, the single market and the customs union, but get more (or rather, keep as much as possible of what it now has) for less. It seems to think the EU should give it this because a) BMW, prosecco, etc; and b) it is Britain, after all. But this the EU cannot give, because it believes the kind of have-cake-and-eat-it, half-in-half-out deal the UK wants would end up undermining the entire EU edifice, which is built on the autonomy of its decision-making, the rule of its law and the integrity of its single market. Barnier made this absolutely plain, detecting "a sort of nostalgia" in the UK's position papers around "continuing to enjoy the benefits of the single market and EU membership, without actually being part of it": Britain wants to adopt its own standards and regulations, but also to have these standards recognised automatically in the EU. This is simply impossible. You cannot be outside the single market and shape its legal order … The single market, the EU capacity to regulate, to supervise, to enforce our laws, must not and will not be undermined by Brexit. It's also about money, of course. Barnier said the UK did not feel "legally obliged" to honour its post-Brexit financial obligations, while Davis said Britain had a "very different legal stance" on the question of the divorce bill. The Sunday Times suggested Theresa May was set to approve a financial settlement as high as £50bn, which might ease the path towards a trade deal but this was, the Brexit secretary said, "nonsense" and "completely wrong". In any event, Brexit talks are now considered highly unlikely to move on from the article 50 divorce negotiations to discuss a future trade agreement in October as was originally hoped. The view from Europe Barnier doubled down at the weekend, telling an annual economic forum in Italy that since the British government was not doing the job, the EU would have ensure Brexit was an educational process for the Brits: There are extremely serious consequences of leaving the single market and it hasn't been explained to the British people. We intend to teach people … what leaving the single market means. The turn of phrase may have been unfortunate, inevitably prompting accusations that Brussels was bent on teaching the UK a lesson, something Barnier belatedly recognised: | 
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David Davis (left) and Michel Barnier Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock 
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