Brussels pours cold water on October 31 exit

IT will be ‘very difficult’ to reach a new Brexit deal by the October 31 deadline, the EU’s chief negotiator warned last night.

Michel Barnier told ambassadors that Britain’s Irish backstop alternative is still not acceptable – despite concessions from Boris Johnson.

UK and Brussels negotiators locked themselves away in the EU Commission’s headquarters over the weekend to hammer out a compromise in time for a crunch summit on Thursday.

It came after Mr Johnson’s fresh proposals on how to solve the Northern Ireland border issue were given a warm reception by Irish premier Leo Varadkar last week.

But Mr Barnier said there had not been ‘as much progress’ as hoped during a briefing last night to update member states.

He said Britain had failed to provide enough detail on the issue of customs, which has dogged talks surrounding the backstop, designed to prevent a hard border in Ireland.

Mr Barnier stopped short of calling off the talks, which will continue today and tomorrow.

But his bleak assessment dampened hopes of an imminent breakthrough, which is needed if Britain is to leave the EU on October 31 as Mr Johnson repeatedly promises.

One senior EU diplomat said: ‘It’s a kind of Groundhog Day that continues tomorrow on customs.’

Another added: ‘It’ll be difficult to have a legal text ready for the summit, but still not impossible if there’s some movement.’A third diplomat said: ‘There’s momentum but probably not enough time. Negotiations are, as expected, not easy. But they are moving forward.’

EU officials had already privately said there was little chance of reaching a deal in time.

Mr Johnson’s plan involves creating two customs areas on the island of Ireland, which one senior EU source close to the negotiations described as ‘mindbogglingly’ complex. They added: ‘This requires careful legal work you can’t do hastily. That makes it all very tricky.’

The plan would see Northern Ireland being subject to EU customs tariffs as goods cross the Irish Sea from mainland Britain. But Northern Irish businesses would claim back rebates, meaning it would de facto remain within UK customs jurisdiction.

A meeting of EU foreign ministers will take place tomorrow in Luxembourg, where they ideally want sight of final proposals.

Under the terms of the socalled Benn Act, Mr Johnson must accept whatever extension is offered by the EU if there is no agreement before October 31.

Any new legal text will have to be translated into all of the bloc’s languages and subjected to scrutiny by its legal services.

The EU parliament must then pass it, where it would have to go through committee hearings before facing a full vote. One EU source said it was ‘really unlikely’ all these processes could take place by the end of the month.

A UK Government spokesman said there had been ‘constructive discussions’ but that there is still ‘a significant amount of work to be done’.

‘Makes it all very tricky’