Rebels scuppered Brexit breakthrough

BORIS JOHNSON’S Brexit ‘sherpa’ had opened discreet talks with his counterparts from EU capitals about a two-year limit to the hated Northern Irish backstop, The Mail on Sunday has learnt.

According to a senior diplomatic source from an EU country that is not the UK, David Frost, who represents Mr Johnson in Brussels and Europe, discussed the idea with representatives from Germany and France.

But it is claimed the secret negotiations were ‘killed stone dead’ once it was clear MPs had bound the Prime Minister’s hands by trying to force him to beg for an extension from Brussels. The source said: ‘Why would we bother talking now?’

Last night, Downing Street insiders confirmed that highlevel talks designed to break the Brexit deadlock ‘behind the EU’s back’ had been taking place in European capitals but they had been ‘cut out like a light switch’ once it became clear that MPs had ‘sabotaged’ Mr Johnson’s attempts to use the threat of No Deal as a major bargaining chip in negotiations.

The talks took place in the first few weeks of Mr Johnson’s premiership when it appeared he had begun to ramp up preparations for a No Deal Brexit.

The EU source said: ‘The sherpas definitely discussed whether a time limit would be enough to get a deal through Parliament, and Frost said, “Yes, but it would have to be two years.”’

But Mr Johnson had previously said that the loathed Northern Irish protocol in Theresa May’s Brussels deal had to be removed completely before he could consider talks with Brussels.

The insurance policy known as the backstop could see the UK tied to Brussels red tape indefinitely, with Mr Johnson branding the fact that the UK could not leave unilaterally as ‘undemocratic’.

Instead, he called for a ‘backstopectomy’ to see it removed completely, but it appears a weakening of the protocol was under active consideration by his team.

Any such deal would have met stiff opposition from Dublin as well as infuriated the EU Commission in Brussels, who insist that all discussions about the terms of Brexit must be directed through their Article 50 taskforce.

It would also anger Mr Johnson’s hardline Brexit-supporting MPs who have consistently vowed to vote down any deal with Brussels that keeps the backstop in place.

Mr Johnson will come face to face with his EU counterparts at the summit of the European Council of leaders next month, with the Prime Minister fixing his hopes for a breakthrough on the crunch summit.