MERKEL WANTS BRITAIN ‘ TO CRAWL ACROSS BROKEN GLASS’

On deadline day for Brexit talks, chances of failure put at 80% Boris takes control of No Deal planning as UK insider tells MoS...

BORIS JOHNSON has seized personal control of Britain’s No Deal preparations as the deadline for historic talks with the EU expires today.

The move comes as Government sources put the chances of negotiations failing as high as 80 per cent, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel being blamed for the European Union’s hard line.

One source said that she was ‘determined to make Britain crawl across broken glass’ rather than reach a compromise.

Mr Johnson’s Whitehall intervention is aimed at protecting vital supplies of food and medicines after January 1. He will head a new ‘supercommittee’ to run alongside the existing No Deal preparation group chaired by Michael Gove.

The Prime Minister and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have agreed to take a firm decision on the future of the talks today – although they could theoretically continue up until Christmas Day, with the Commons even sitting on Boxing Day to put any

deal on to the statute book. Mr Johnson is, however, adamant that the UK will not go back to the negotiating table after December 31, when the Brexit transition period expires.

Talks were continuing into this morning, but one Government source said: ‘As things stand, the offer on the table from the EU remains unacceptable. The Prime Minister will leave no stone unturned in this process, but he is absolutely clear: any agreement must be fair and respect the fundamental position that the UK will be a sovereign nation in three weeks’ time. If they want a deal, it has to be now.’

The talks have been paralysed by rows over fishing rights and the so-called level playing field ‘ ratchet’ that would tie the UK to future EU standards.

It is understood that remaini ng hopes of a l ast- minute breakthrough hinge on discussions about a new body that could settle future disputes between London and Brussels about trade laws and tariffs.

British negotiators believe a personality clash has compounded the problem because the ‘ Lutheran’ Mrs Merkel does not trust the ‘ libertine’ Mr Johnson.

One Minister involved in the negotiations said that Mr Johnson was being ‘strong and resolute’, but claimed that Chancellor Rishi Sunak was ‘wobbling’ over the economic cost of No Deal and was in the ‘sell-out camp’.

Under the No Deal contingency plans released l ast night:

More than 3,000 lorries a week will be mobilised to bring essential drugs and medical equipment into the UK;

A total of 1,100 extra customs and immigration officers will be manning the border by March, while 20 telephone helplines will provide advice to businesses;

Whitehall will ‘war-game’ its No Deal preparations within days in Operation Capstone, which will simulate the worstcase scenarios;

An official ‘ playbook’ has been devised to ‘map out every foreseeable No Deal scenario’, according to sources, with ‘ Minister- approved courses of action’;

Live exercises have been run to move fresh produce, fish and even day-old chicks from the EU to the UK;

A bespoke phone app for hauliers will keep lorries moving by directing drivers to the closest of seven new inland border checkpoints, while a ‘ haulier handbook’ on t he changes has been translated into 13 languages;

A Border Operations Centre is being manned around the clock by expert officials to limit hold-ups;

A Fish Export Service will issue ‘validated catch certificates’ and technical support for the industry.

The UK’s chief trade negotiator Lord Frost was yesterday seen leaving the European Union headquarters in Brussels via an underground car park following a meeting with his EU counterpart Michel Barnier.

The Prime Minister is being urged by Tory donors not to agree to any EU-backed extension to talks, with a number of big benefactors signalling that they would be happy with No Deal.

One insider said: ‘The worst thing in the world would be an extension. Most donors would say no to that. People just want to get out. They think we voted to leave the EU, and that Boris go this 80- seat majority because of leaving the EU.’

Internal party polling has found that 75 per cent of Tory members oppose any extension to talks.

The so-called XO committee on preparations for the end of the Brexit transition period, chaired by Mr Gove, has met more 200 times. With just three weeks to go until the end of the period, it will now be supplemented by the larger ‘Super XO’ committee, chaired by Mr Johnson, to finalise the planning.

The Prime Minister faced criticism from his own backbenches last night after announcing that four Royal Navy vessels would be dispatched to protect British waters if a trade deal cannot be agreed.

Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the Commons Defence Committee, described t he threat as ‘irresponsible’, and former Conservative Party chairman Lord Patten accused Mr Johnson of being on a ‘runaway train of English exceptionalism’.

However, Admiral Lord West, a former chief of naval staff, said it was ‘absolutely appropriate for the Navy to do as it is told by the Government’.

The Ministry of Defence said it was prepared for a ‘range of scenarios’ after December 31.

Access to UK waters has been one of the main sticking points in the negotiations, with French President Emmanuel Mac ron saying he was unwilling to ‘give up my share of the cake’.

The Government signed a £ 86.6 million deal with four ferry companies last year to allow up to 3,000 lorries full of drugs and medical equipment to be transported into Britain every week across 13 routes.

A Whitehall source said: ‘With this new intelligence and investment at the border, we will keep goods and people moving smoothly and make our country safer and more secure.

‘Having safeguarded the flow of critical goods, such as vaccines and vital medicines, through surging freight capacity, no one needs to worry about our food, medicine or vital supply chains. We will continue to work tirelessly to ensure everyone is ready.

‘As with any major change, Deal or No Deal, there will be challenges and bumps to overcome. But we have laid the groundwork to minimise the disruption which occurs in either scenario.’

‘We’ll be a sovereign nation in three weeks’ ‘People just want out – we voted to leave’

BRITAIN has every right to be mystified by the behaviour of the European Union’s leaders in these tense times. Boris Johnson, and the UK’s negotiating team, have made it plain that they still actively seek an agreement on our departure from the EU. The Prime Minister has offered to meet individual leaders – especially France’s President Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Merkel – to locate the problem and solve it.

But his visit to Brussels for his curious and literally fishy dinner with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was a chilly, empty affair. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom holds one of the most honoured offices in the world. He does not lightly go to such meetings, and it is verging on rudeness to have sent him home empty-handed.

The Superstate appeared to have turned its back on him, knowing full well that the package on offer was unacceptable but making no effort to explore a new compromise. And so as the hours tick away towards yet another deadline – this time perhaps it truly is the last – it really does look as if we may have to leave without a deal. Do the proud grandees of Brussels think that this will frighten us into backing down? They know little about us as a people, and little about our Premier, if so.

Or is it that they seek to punish us for trying to trade more advantageously and flexibly than their rules would allow us to do? Do they wish to penalise us for the act of leaving, and to deter other member states from considering this path? Are they chastising us for having the effrontery to exercise our lawful right to leave the EU, enshrined in a t reaty approved by them all?

Are they disturbed and embarrassed by the British Gove r nment’s o bedi e nce to a democratic referendum – of the sort which some other EU nations have either ignored or sought to hold again if they went the wrong way? This is a very narrow and spiteful form of diplomacy if so, one which sits badly with their claims to be a great, responsible, libera l-minded and peace- promoting bloc. And it explains yet again why so many Britons of all classes have come to believe that we are better off out of that bloc.

Negotiations are normally an attempt by both sides to get as good an outcome as possible for themselves. The process finds its way to a compromise because the two parties each seek to benefit themselves.

Eventually, sometimes in the final few hours after much posturing and late-night endurance, both realise that they have got as much as they can and shake hands. But t his cannot work if one side’s motive is not to help itself but to do down the other party.

If this is what is going on, we must very much hope that it stops, now. It simply is not in the interests of civilised nations to behave in this way. EU citizens, as well as British citizens, will suffer from any chaos or economic dislocation which results from the absence of an agreement. Ireland in particular has much to lose.

Brussels must have watched the terrible political troubles of the May government, and grasped that Boris Johnson came to office because he promised to implement the verdict of the referendum, as she could not. It is time they too respected that mandate.

If not, the turbulence and disruption which follow will be their fault, not ours.