- Boris Johnson to deliver hardline negotiating demands to Angela Merkel in Berlin
- PM to demand the backstop be deleted and insist UK is serious about No Deal
- Ms Merkel expected to rebuff PM as her allies say the border protocol must stay
- Mr Johnson has vowed to approach talks with Ms Merkel with ‘a lot of oomph’
- But a letter from the PM to Donald Tusk sparked a furious backlash in Brussels
- European Council president said Mr Johnson’s Brexit demands were unrealistic
- After Berlin Mr Johnson due in Paris tomorrow for talks with Emmanuel Macron
Leading allies of Angela Merkel have warned Boris Johnson deleting the backstop from the Brexit deal is ‘completely impossible’ as the Prime Minister flies into Berlin today for crunch talks with the German Chancellor.
Mr Johnson will travel to Germany to deliver his hardline negotiating stance in person and is expected to make clear that he is serious about the UK leaving the EU with or without a deal on October 31.
But the meeting risked being soured before it even began after Mr Johnson demanded in an uncompromising letter to the EU that the backstop be scrapped.
The letter, sent to European Council president Donald Tusk, sparked a furious reaction from Brussels yesterday as the bloc doubled down on its insistence that the existing divorce deal cannot be changed.
The kind of reception Mr Johnson is likely to receive in Berlin was illustrated by Florian Hahn, European policy spokesman for Ms Merkel’s party, who took aim at the British PM’s approach to talks.
‘Boris Johnson wants to smash his head through the wall,’ he said, ‘but the wall is thicker than he thinks.’
Another ally of Ms Merkel said Mr Johnson had made a mistake in sending his letter to Mr Tusk and suggested it had actually reduced the chances of a deal being done.
Mr Johnson’s meeting with Ms Merkel, and another meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron in Paris tomorrow lunchtime, come as the chances of a No Deal split from the EU appear increasingly likely.
Mr Johnson said he will enter the talks ‘with a lot of oomph’ but both sides are refusing to budge and are locked in a state of stalemate.
Boris Johnson, pictured during a TV interview last night, has demanded the backstop be deleted from the Brexit deal. He will deliver his demand in person to Angela Merkel today as he flies to Berlin for talks.
But Ms Merkel, the German chancellor, (pictured in Iceland yesterday) is expected to rebuff the calls and insist the existing divorce deal cannot be changed
Allies of Mr Johnson believe his tough message that there will be a No Deal split unless the EU agrees to drop the backstop has hit home hard in Brussels.
But with just 71 days until the Halloween deadline there is yet to be any movement at all from Brussels, setting up a potentially fraught last minute attempt to avoid a chaotic split in the run up to October 31.
Mr Hahn told The Times: ‘There cannot and will not be new negotiations. It is completely impossible that the backstop will be removed from the agreement or softened.
‘The only possible offer would be to agree more precise language for the political declaration on the future relationship between the EU and the UK after Brexit. But I fear this won’t be enough for Boris Johnson.’
Norbert Röttgen, another ally of Ms Merkel who is in charge of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee, echoed a similar sentiment in comments reported by The Guardian.
He said: ‘The letter to the president of the European Council is not a serious offer, and Boris Johnson knows it.’
He added: ‘If Johnson really wanted to achieve something on his visits to Paris and Berlin, he would have been well advised against writing this letter.’
Meanwhile, a senior German official, asked by Politico what Ms Merkel would offer Mr Johnson on Brexit, replied: ‘Nothing.’
Speaking to reporters yesterday Mr Johnson reiterated his opposition to the Irish border protocol which is designed to prevent the return of a hard border on the island of Ireland in the event the EU and UK cannot agree a future trading relationship.
He said: ‘Don’t forget why we’re doing all of this. The existing agreement just doesn’t work for the UK. And Parliament has thrown it out three times.
‘We can’t have this backstop. So I’m going to go to see our friends and partners – I’m going off to Germany and then to France, and then to see the G7 at Biarritz, and I’m going to make the point that the backstop is going to come out.’
Mr Johnson’s trip to Berlin and then Paris has been designed to try to stop Brexit overshadowing the G7 summit which taking place this weekend.
In his letter to Mr Tusk, Mr Johnson said the backstop should be removed from the divorce deal ahead of the October 31 Brexit deadline.
But Mr Tusk defended the measure and warned that scrapping it risked a return to a hard border.
A letter sent by Mr Johnson to Donald Tusk outlining his hardline negotiating position went down badly with the EU. Mr Tusk looked very relaxed yesterday despite the Brexit countdown after posting a picture on Instagram of him sitting on a hammock while looking after a baby and a dog
Mr Tusk responded on Twitter to Mr Johnson and suggested the British Prime Minister was being unrealistic in his asks
Downing Street said that unless the backstop is abolished ‘there is no prospect of a deal’ being done between the two sides.
Mr Tusk suggested Number 10 was being unrealistic and accused Mr Johnson of dishonesty.
He said: ‘The backstop is an insurance to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland unless and until an alternative is found.
‘Those against the backstop and not proposing realistic alternatives in fact support re-establishing a border. Even if they do not admit it.’
Responding, Mr Johnson said: ‘We think there is a big opportunity now for everybody to come together, take out that backstop.’
He added: ‘We will be looking at all the ways in which we can maintain frictionless trade at the Northern Irish border – whether it’s trusted trader schemes, or electronic pre-clearing, or whatever it happens to be, all that kind of thing, checks away from the border, points of sale or whatever if you have to crack down on smuggling, all that kind of thing – but we will come up with those solutions, or agree those solutions I should say, in the context of the free-trade agreement.
‘That’s the way we are going to approach it. And you know what, at the moment it is absolutely true that our friends and partners are a bit negative.
‘I saw what Donald Tusk had to say and it wasn’t redolent of a sense of optimism. But I think actually we will get there.’
Mr Johnson is adamant that alternative arrangements can be found to allow the backstop to be deleted and give the deal a fighting chance of being agreed by MPs.
Officials in Brussels privately accused Mr Johnson of making ‘incorrect’ and ‘misleading’ claims about the backstop.
In public comments, the European Commission said the Prime Minister had failed to put forward a ‘legal, operational solution’ to the issue and had acknowledged that if one could be found it might not be ready in time.
In his letter, Mr Johnson said while he wants the UK to leave the EU with a deal, he could not support a Withdrawal Agreement that ‘locks the UK’ into a potentially indefinite customs union and applies single-market legislation in Northern Ireland.
As an alternative to the backstop, the Prime Minister said the UK would agree to a ‘legally binding commitment’ not to put in place infrastructure, checks or controls at the border with Ireland and would hope the EU did the same.
The backstop should be replaced with a commitment to put in place ‘alternative arrangements’, as far as possible before the end of the transition period, as part of the future relationship between the UK and EU.
But European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said the letter ‘does not provide a legal, operational solution to prevent the return of a hard border on the island of Ireland’.
‘It does not set out what any alternative arrangements could be and in fact it recognises that there is no guarantee that such arrangements will be in place by the end of the transitional period,’ she said.
Meanwhile, Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator, poured cold water on the idea of removing the backstop from the agreement.
‘I don’t see any majority in the European Parliament to remove the backstop from the Withdrawal Agreement,’ he said.
‘It is a vital insurance policy, negotiated in good faith & supported by the people of the Island of Ireland. The time for bluster & political blame games is fast running out.’
The backstop was included in Theresa May’s original Brexit deal as a last resort measure to be used in the event no overall trade deal has been struck by the two sides by the end of a transition period.
It would effectively see existing EU rules on customs kept in place to ensure frictionless trade on the island of Ireland could continue and prevent the return of a hard border.
But Brexiteers hate it because if implemented it would last indefinitely, restrict the UK’s ability to strike its own trade deal and getting out of it would require the agreement of both sides.
Mr Johnson has repeatedly labelled the protocol ‘anti-democratic’ since he won the keys to Downing Street last month.
source:dailymail.co.uk