Boris is on collision course with the EU over Irish backstop

BORIS Johnson was on ‘collision course’ with the EU last night, after warning Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron he will not sign a Brexit deal unless the Irish backstop is ‘abolished’.

In talks with the leaders of Germany and France, the Prime Minister said Britain would never accept a repackaged version of Theresa May’s deal, rejected three times by MPs.

The tough message followed a warning to Jean-Claude Juncker on Thursday, which prompted the European Commission chief to respond that the Withdrawal Agreement signed with Mrs May was ‘the best and only’ deal possible.

The stand-off sparked a warning yesterday from the Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney that Mr Johnson was putting Britain on course for a No Deal exit. Mr Coveney said Mr Johnson’s stance was ‘very unhelpful to this process’.

He added: ‘He seems to have made a deliberate decision to set Britain on a collision course with the EU and with Ireland in relation to Brexit negotiations.

‘The approach the British Prime Minister seems to now be taking is not going to be the basis of an agreement, and that’s worrying for everybody.

‘We will continue to refocus a lot of effort and resource on ensuring we are ready as we can be for the impact of a No Deal Brexit.’

Mr Johnson spoke by phone to President Macron, one of the biggest critics of Brexit, on Thursday night. The PM’s official spokesman said he told Mr Macron: ‘He wants to do a deal. He will be energetic in trying to seek that deal, but the Withdrawal Agreement has been rejected three times by the House of Commons. It is not going to pass.

‘That means reopening the Withdrawal Agreement and securing the abolition of the backstop.’

Mr Johnson issued a similar warning in a phone call with the German Chancellor yesterday.

Irish PM Leo Varadkar last night said Mr Johnson appeared to be taking a ‘much harder line position’ than Mrs May. But he said Mr Johnson had ‘demonstrated a degree of flexibility in the past’ and said he wanted to meet him to discuss his ‘real red lines’.

Mr Varadkar said he thought a general election before Christmas in the UK was possible and joked that Mr Johnson’s tenure as prime minister might be the shortest ever. He also said that alternative arrangements, to which Mr Johnson has referred, to keep the Irish border open, ‘don’t really exist’.

A No Deal exit would also threaten the Union, as questions about a united Ireland would intensify and ‘we have to be prepared for that’, he said.

Meanwhile, hardline Eurosceptics yesterday warned Mr Johnson against a Brexit ‘betrayal’. In an ominous move, a string of senior Brexiteers voiced fears that Mr Johnson could renege on his pledge to abandon Mrs May’s deal altogether.

Steve Baker, leader of the Brexit ‘Spartans’ who voted against Mrs May’s deal three times, yesterday spoke of his ‘fear’ that Mr Johnson would betray Eurosceptics by seeking a compromise.

Mr Baker turned down a job in government on Thursday after he was offered the chance to return to his old post as Brexit minister.

He said he would be ‘powerless’ in the role after the Cabinet Office under Michael Gove was put in charge of No Deal planning.

Yesterday, the Wycombe MP said: ‘I fear being asked to vote for a “compromise” withdrawal agreement with a time limit on the backstop. Everything now turns on Boris.’

During the leadership campaign, Mr Johnson repeatedly declared Mrs May’s deal ‘dead’.

But in his Commons debut on Thursday, he focused largely on getting rid of the backstop, which critics claim would leave the UK locked in the customs union.

Mr Johnson said a time limit on the backstop was ‘not enough’ to make the deal acceptable, but he indicated he was open to renegotiating Mrs May’s plan, saying: ‘I hope the EU will rethink its current refusal to make any changes to the withdrawal agreement.’

Mark Francois, a senior member of the European Reform Group, said hardliners would never vote for any version of the deal.

‘Not the basis of an agreement’