The negotiation tactics used by the EU and UK teams differed during the first months of 2020. Barnier tried to engage the UK on the EU's core demands and told his team to map all points of divergence in order to find ways to overcome them rapidly. Member states agreed to publish a full text of a proposed agreement in March, after round one, framed as an invitation to the UK to take a position on all elements and start working in earnest. It was not a take-it-or-leave-it offer but the UK refused to use it as a base for collaborative work. Anna Mikhailova wrote in the Mail on Sunday that Frost took inspiration for his approach from a business coach, Igor Ryzov, whose book The Kremlin School of Negotiation compares entering negotiations to engaging in combat. That battle metaphor dovetails with the assumption of pro-Brexit media that the UK had to crush the EU, which was hardly a good basis to create a sustainable relationship.

Frost interpreted the EU's offer as wanting to curb UK sovereignty and rejected the proposed obligations on fundamental rights, level playing field and fisheries. He insisted on creating soft governance constraints instead of sanctions and retaliation across economic sectors for non-compliance in one area. The UK stalled and rejected the core EU demands that were outside of the scope of its own mandate in its Command paper. Frost's emphasis on sovereignty as breaking free from obligations put the EU in a position of demandeur. Barnier kept stressing that the offer of zero-tariff, zero-quota access to the single market was a generous one, to which Frost replied the UK did not value that offer if it suppressed its freedom. It was hard for the EU team to gauge if he meant this. Gove and Frost both proposed to reintroduce tariffs, which Barnier rejected, but was that quid pro quo a bluff or was it really to try to water down or even eliminate obligations on the level playing field? Was the UK ready to walk away, which it “seriously contemplated”, as Frost said in his 2022 Zurich speech?