Boris Johnson’s Brexit tactics could prove fatal as time runs out

What is Britain’s game? That is the question echoing in European Union corridors in Brussels. The main problem is time.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson during his visit to a construction site near Birmingham at the weekend. Picture: AFP

What is Britain’s game? That is the question echoing in European Union corridors in Brussels.

The main problem is time. There are only nine weeks left to agree a trade and security deal that will run to 700 pages. For the European side the issue is not David Frost, Boris Johnson’s chief negotiator, who is acutely aware of the timetable.

“He understands the time constraints but not the rest of Downing Street,” a senior European diplomatic source said. “Johnson thinks the October deadline is pure tactics. That could be a fatal misunderstanding.”

The Prime Minister tends, ­according to diplomatic sources, to believe that at the 11th hour, EU leaders will hold an emergency summit and thrash out a deal. In that world view, the only real deadline for a deal is December 31 when the transition period ends and Britain leaves the single market and customs union.

However, EU leaders will not meet until the main principles of an agreement are in place and when it is only details, even hard ones, that need resolving.

“The only flexibility is when to get the highest level involved and that can’t be done until there is real convergence,” the source said.

EU legal services insist that the real “hard deadline” is October 31 when European parliament MPs must start to scrutinise an agreement (which can be done with English, French and German texts) and legal translation into ­Europe’s 24 languages must begin.

The EU is baffled over Mr Frost’s refusal, or inability, to provide any details of the government’s future “state aid” or subsidy policy.

Quietly without a public statement, chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier has given a lot of ground to Frost, retreating from his political mandate that requires full alignment with EU state aid rules.

“He would be crucified if he discussed the details of what he has conceded,” the source said. “He needs to know as a matter of trust what the UK’s subsidy principles will be. Otherwise he is stuck.”

Many on the European side believe Downing Street is bluffing on subsidies because there is so little evidence of a policy debate to ditch the present model that, whatever the view of Johnson’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings, would split the Tories down the middle.

“Surely if he was dropping such a key tenet of modern Conservatism then Westminster would be ringing to the sound of battle,” an EU official said.

It is feared that Frost, at the ­behest of Downing Street, is prepared to take the talks to the brink, risking a no-deal exit if the clock runs out. “Johnson is playing a game of extreme brinkmanship,” the source said.

The Times