BORIS AND LEO: IT’S A BREXIT BROMANCE
What REALLY happened when pair met in private and why DUP will ‘row in behind a border deal’
TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar and British prime minister Boris Johnson joked about the war of words between Wags Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy in a display of bonhomie that surprised even their closest advisers.
The breakthrough at this week’s summit in Merseyside’s Thornton Manor was clear to see when the pair emerged smiling from a 90-minute one-to-one behind closed doors, sources have revealed.
The remarkable inside details of the warm meeting between the two premiers comes as the Irish Mail on Sunday can also reveal:
Irish negotiators believe that, despite protesting otherwise, the DUP will eventually go along with the emerging Brexit deal
Mr Varadkar’s Brexit advisers dismiss comparisons of Mr Johnson to controversial US President Donald Trump
The private talks between the pair
went on so long, their backroom staff ended up eating the prepared lunch meant for the premiers – and a second one was ordered
Despite briefings against him in the British press emerging from Downing Street aides, Mr Johnson finds the Taoiseach ‘impressive’
Tory rebels are plotting to sabotage Mr Johnson’s Brexit plans by forcing a delay to the October 31 exit date, even if he wins Commons support for a deal.
The MoS can reveal that Mr Varadkar, who has been a pin-up baddie for Brexiteers over the last three years, broke the ice as he sat down in the wood-panelled reception room of the 19th century country pile.
‘You know this is where Coleen Rooney had her birthday party,’ joked the Taoiseach.
‘Well, we get on better than those two,’ the PM quipped back, in a nod to the ongoing saga between Mrs Rooney and the wife of England forward Jamie Vardy.
After exchanging small talk about their partners and Downing Street’s dog Dilyn, the pair kicked out their aides and did not reappear for 90 minutes.
What they discussed remains a tightly guarded secret, but there has been a total change in the relationship between Mr Johnson and his Irish counterpart, compared to his tense and scratchy dealings with Theresa May.
‘Boris finds Leo very impressive,’ says a source close to Johnson, ‘and they get on very well.’
The talks lasted long enough for both peckish Downing Street staff and their Merrion Street counterparts to put aside three years of tense talks and ate their bosses’ prepared lunch.
They were putting away the smoked salmon and suitably European prosciutto sandwiches, pasta and a cheeseboard when the two leaders called them back into the room for further talks.
‘It was instantly clear there had been a breakthrough,’ said a Downing Street aide. ‘We were hopeful that the moment Leo had stepped foot in England, we might have a hope but their smiles took everyone back a bit.’
Extra lunch had to be ordered when the pair had finally finished further talks in the grounds of the manor, while the aides hammered out a joint statement that neither side had expected to be so positive just hours earlier.
But in reality their meeting was the product of weeks of delicate diplomacy behind the scenes, even if pugnacious Downing Street aide Dominic Cummings’s briefings against the EU garnered the most public attention.
Following a row over the leaking of details of a call between Mr Johnson and German chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday, followed by a vicious briefing against Mr Varadkar’s intransigence on Wednesday, it looked like all hope of a deal was dead.
A 30-minute phone call between Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe and his British counterpart Sajid Javid helped soothe tempers, but defenders of Mr Cummings insist there was ‘method to the madness’ and the hardline stance helped to ‘bring the Irish to our table’.
However two other key Downing Street figures have been singled out for making the Liverpool summit happen – Brexit negotiator David Frost and chief of staff Edward Lister.
A Downing Street insider said: ‘There has been a lot of nonsense floating around for the last few weeks that we haven’t been trying to get a deal. In reality Frosty has been working his b ****** s off in Brussels since August, and Eddie has diligently won over the Irish, flying back and forth to Dublin under the radar for weeks. Three months ago Varadkar was saying: “No talks, no changes, nothing.” But there he was, negotiating with the Brits in Britain.
Another insider said: ‘As soon as Leo put a foot in England the game changed dramatically. Even getting him over here turned everything that Brussels have been saying all summer on its head. That stuff doesn’t happen out of the blue and by accident.’
Yesterday DUP Deputy Leader Nigel Dodds told Italian paper La Repubblica that the proposed solution to the Northern Ireland backstop cannot work.
‘Northern Ireland must stay in a full UK customs union, full stop.
‘There is a lot of stuff coming from Brussels, pushed by the Europeans in the last hours, but one thing is sure: Northern Ireland must remain fully part of the UK customs union. And Boris Johnson knows it very well. It cannot work because Northern Ireland has to remain fully part of the UK customs union.’
But despite these comments, senior Irish negotiating figures are also optimistic that Mr Johnson can carry the DUP and his parliament. They said there is some sympathy for the DUP which is ‘caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. They took their vote for granted and now that is turning on them.’
‘Clear that there had been a breakthrough’
Ultimately though they believe: ‘Dodds is a Princeton scholar. Arlene is hugely intelligent and brainy. They know the game is changing and that they must change before the game is up.’
One senior figure said: ‘The DUP did not open the door to regulatory alignment for fun. It was opening the door. From regulatory alignment flows customs.’
Another source added: ‘They must leave their base or they’ll end up like the communists in Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They can leave the rump to Jim Allister and the TUV [Traditional Unionist Voice].’
Significantly the senior negotiators believe: ‘The paramilitaries, the UDA and the UVF are on-side. The main problems are social media and the Orange Order.’
The belief is that when it comes to a deal: ‘The Ken Clarke wing is on board. The ERG is back on board. They will need Labour votes but given that half of Labour’s MPs don’t even want Labour to win the next election that is achievable.’
Senior figures also slammed claims that Ireland’s relationship with the DUP and the UK has reached an all-time low.
One insider said: ‘Leo’s relationship with Arlene was forged when they were both ministers. She won’t hear a bad word said about him. When he says anything wrong, she blames Simon [Coveney].
‘The developing rapprochement between Johnson and Varadkar has been critical. We are astonished at this portrait of Boris as the British Trump. He is a classical scholar.’
It helps, one source added: ‘That ultimately leaders must make the big decisions. Leo is made for situations like this. Leo is made for highoctane moments like this where clear thinking is needed. You can have all the team you need but ultimately you carry the scalpel. Boris met a different Leo to the Leo he expected.’
One source said: ‘The more we see of Corbyn the better Boris looks. As the Americans said of one dictator, he might be a son of a b **** but he’s our son of a b **** .’
A senior figure added: ‘Boris had to deal. The US-style presidential photos, walking in the garden together. They had the whole shebang set up.’
Meanwhile senior Irish Government figures believe that a successful Brexit deal could result in ‘seismic’ changes in the relationship between the Republic, Ireland and the UK.
The Government has, for now, continued to downplay the consequences of the Varadkar-Johnson summit this week.
One senior source said: ‘In this process you cannot believe something even when it is before our eyes. Our policy is that the statesman-like thing is to downplay everything.’
Sources said the Government had a twin-track strategy when it came to the summit, ‘the first being to let the Tories sort out their civil war last week’.
One senior figure said: ‘Boris took control of his party last week. There was a bit of a civil war in there but eventually Johnson said: “Hang on. I am in charge, we are going for the deal.”’
A senior figure, close to the heart of Government, said: ‘Our tactic was simple. It was to hold the line. That might sound bland.
‘We however had to make sure we held Europe. Then when it came to Boris it was a bit like a team playing away in Europe after a 1-0 home win.’
They added: ‘There was fierce pressure, Cummings and all that lot, threatening warnings that Britain won’t forget… That we would lose special-favoured-nation status. It was a bit like that Lloyd George warning of immediate and terrible war’.
‘Holding the line is a little like Michael Caine in Zulu. They were coming at us from all fronts. We had to stay steady and hold our fire until the Tories sorted their domestics out.’
Senior Government figures were anxious to put forward a cautious analysis of where we are now, with one mandarin saying: ‘The space we are in is best summarised by Churchill – it’s not the beginning of the end; more like the end of the beginning.’
Fine Gael though could not disguise its happiness with the performance of Mr Varadkar: ‘This was the week he grew up as a statesman. He looked Boris in the eye and Boris was the one to blink. There was none of that terrible Love Actually stuff. He was warned about that.’
A source close to the heart of the negotiations said: ‘He moved out of short trousers this week – the final deal, parallel customs and Northern Ireland consent is as good as it gets and will have to be worked out. But the triumph is getting the deal. After that the strategy when it comes to selling the deal is less is more, don’t oversell.’
Senior sources were equally cautious about the possibility that Mr Varadkar would use Brexit and the Budget to cut and run. One top-level figure said: ‘Currently he is 70/30 against. Are the conditions there to call an election? Currently his gut says no… but the Fianna Fáilers are spooked, but it is unclear as to whether the conditions are right.’
‘This week Leo grew up as a statesman’