Michel Barnier warns EU to get ready for UK election

Michel Barnier warns Boris Johnson’s rousing performance in the Commons will herald a UK general election.

Boris Johnson in his first appearance in parliament as PM. Picture: AFP.

The European Union chief negotiator Michel Barnier believes the rousing and optimistic opening performance of the new British Prime Minister in the Commons will herald a UK general election, warning European states that they have to be ready to withstand Boris Johnson’s tactic to heap pressure on the unity of the European Union.

In a clear sign of the nervousness of the EU, Mr Barnier told the member states in a briefing note about Mr Johnson’s “combative speech’’ that “no-deal will never be the EU’s choice, but we all have to be ready for all scenarios.”

Mr Johnson clearly upped the ante with the EU by telling parliament: “No country that values its independence, and indeed its self-respect, could agree to a treaty which signed away our economic independence and self-government as this (EU Withdrawal Agreement) backstop does.” He has unlocked the budget to plan for a no deal and appointed Michael Gove to head up the no-deal planning.

All the while Mr Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May and some of the “Guakesquad’’, her rebel Remain supporters plotting to undermine Mr Johnson, missed the parliamentary fireworks and attended the cricket at Lord’s.

Mr Barnier wrote: “PM Johnson has stated that if an agreement is to be reached it goes by way of eliminating the backstop. This is of course unacceptable and not within the mandate of the European council.

“While he has declared that he will only engage with the EU on this basis, we are on our side ready to work constructively, within our own mandate.

“We will analyse any UK idea on withdrawal issues that are compatible with the existing [withdrawal agreement], and we are of course ready to rework the political declaration, in line with the EUCO guidelines.

“But as suggested by his rather combative speech, we have to be ready for a situation where he gives priority to the planning for ‘no deal’, partly to heap pressure on the unity of the EU27’’.

The outgoing European Commission leader Jean Claude Juncker also illustrated the inflexibility of the EU which underscored why Brexit triumphed at the 2016 referendum, insisting that the EU would not give in to Mr Johnson’s calls for a renegotiation of the Brexit withdrawal agreement.

Mr Juncker told Mr Johnson in a rescheduled phone call earlier this morning Australian time (the first was rejected by the EU leader because it was after midnight his time) that the existing deal is “the best and only agreement possible.” The only agreement they made was to swap phone numbers.

Even though the withdrawal agreement has been rejected three times by the British parliament, detested as much by Remainers as Leavers because it could tie the UK to the EU indefinitely if a future trading position is not resolved — the EU has refused to bend on any of the issues.

Seemingly this plays straight into the plans of Mr Johnson, who may end up calling a general election because of the EU’s intractable stance and the inability of the current parliament to countenance a no-deal Brexit on October 31.

Certainly Mr Johnson’s enthusiastic first appearance at the dispatch box for over two hours

seemed to suggest an election was in the offing as he attacked Jeremy Corbyn for changing his views from supporting Brexit to now being a Remainer, and castigated the Labour chancellor John McDonnell for forging budget documents during his time working for the former London Mayor Ken Livingstone.