PM in last push for a Brexit deal but EU remains pessimistic
BORIS Johnson will attempt a last-ditch charm offensive on EU leaders to get a Brexit deal over the line, amid signs from Brussels that a breakthrough is not expected.
The Prime Minister is set to deliver his proposals for a new withdrawal agreement to Brussels as early as the end of this week.
With EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier viewed in Downing Street as a stickler for rules who will be hard to shift from the deal struck with Theresa May last year, Mr Johnson is keen to speak with key European leaders who may be ready to show flexibility ahead of the crunch Brussels summit on October 17.
But last night EU leaders were said to be “wondering when is the next extension” to Brexit.
In a clear indication that hopes of a breakthrough have evaporated, EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan said the UK has “10 days to try and do a deal”. “It doesn’t always happen that quickly around here,” he added.
Plans were made to fly the Prime Minister to the funeral of French ex-president Jacques Chirac yesterday for talks in the margins with sympathetic leaders, but it was decided the opportunity did not justify breaking off his attendance at the Conservative conference in Manchester.
London believes a key to any deal will be securing the acceptance of Irish premier Leo Varadkar and German chancellor Angela Merkel.
News that negotiator David Frost has finalised a legal text of the UK proposals — said by a senior government source to be “game-changing” — emerged as ministers attending cabinet admitted that they were not absolutely sure what the PM plans to do if his hopes of a deal fall flat.
With speculation that the plan is known only to a tiny circle around Mr Johnson and his chief adviser Dominic Cummings, housing minister Esther McVey said she did not “know what is necessarily going on in Boris’s head”, while Chancellor Sajid Javid when asked if he knew what the PM would do could say only that “I think I do”.
Meanwhile, leading Remainer Dominic Grieve warned that Johnson could be dismissed within minutes by the Queen if he attempted to defy the law which requires him to extend Brexit talks if he cannot strike an acceptable deal by October 19.
Ministers at the Tory conference in Manchester seemed increasingly to be pinning their hopes on a Brexit deal which can win over “Spartan” eurosceptics who consigned Mrs May’s agreement to defeat, and also Labour MPs in Leave-voting Northern and Midlands seats.
Despite the legal requirement to seek an extension to Article 50 Brexit negotiations until January if no agreement is reached, Mr Johnson insists he will take the UK out of the EU by 31 October, deal or no deal.
But Remainers believe that any such attempt would be doomed to failure. And Mr Grieve said a simple refusal to sign the letter to Brussels would bring a swift end to Mr Johnson’s two-month-old premiership.
If the PM ignored a “mandamus” order from the Supreme Court compelling him to comply with what he terms the “surrender act”, the monarch would act to remove him, said the former attorney general.