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Angela Merkel and Boris Johnson Clash Over Brexit Proposal As Angela Merkel and Boris Johnson Clash, the Odds of a Brexit Deal Fade
(about 2 hours later)
LONDON — An early-morning phone call on Tuesday between Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany appeared to dash hopes of a Brexit deal before the Oct. 31 deadline, raising the pressure on Mr. Johnson and punctuating the deep differences between the two sides.
Prospects for a deal already were fading, and the latest setback sets the stage for a next fraught chapter in the tortured discussions over Britain’s three-year battle to leave the European Union, in which European leaders must decide whether to grant another delay to withdrawal. LONDON — Britain is giving up its efforts to strike a deal with the uncompromising European Union and will not return to the table. It will seek to leave the European Union, even without a deal. And toward that end, it will sabotage the bloc, sending provocateurs to represent it in Brussels and penalizing countries that vote to grant another Brexit extension.
Mr. Johnson has insisted that Britain will leave at the end of the month, with or without an agreement, but another delay would buy time for a general election in Britain, which now seems like a certainty, and avoid the risk of a no-deal Brexit in just a few weeks’ time. So went the drumbeat of recrimination from officials, mostly anonymous, inside 10 Downing Street, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s already dim hopes for a negotiated exit with Brussels appeared to flicker out on Tuesday.
But the phone call with Mrs. Merkel on Tuesday appeared to all but eliminate whatever limited optimism remained to achieve an agreement before Oct. 31, after the German chancellor made clear that she could not agree to central elements of proposals made by Mr. Johnson last week, according to reports in the British news media. The threats and warnings from London are meant to disguise a highly inconvenient truth: Mr. Johnson is legally obliged to ask the European Union to extend the deadline of Oct. 31 for its departure from Europe, if he does not reach a deal by Oct. 19, despite his vow never to do so.
Downing Street described the 30-minute call as a “frank exchange” — a formulation usually applied to difficult conversations — adding that Britain needed “to see some compromise on the E.U. side.” As the prime minister girds for a likely election, his political survival depends in part on looking like he is being dragged, kicking and screaming, into this reversal. Everything Mr. Johnson says and does is calculated to advance the narrative that he has been forced — by an irresponsible Parliament, overreaching courts and truculent Europeans — into breaking his promise.
Mr. Johnson’s spokesman refused to confirm or deny a more hard-line briefing to the BBC, ascribed to a “No. 10 source,” which described the call as a “clarifying moment” that meant that “a deal is essentially impossible not just now but ever.” This blame game took shape on Tuesday, after Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with Mr. Johnson by phone. One British official, speaking anonymously, faulted her for dashing any last hopes of a deal, saying she told the prime minister that disagreements over Northern Ireland could not be bridged, “not just now but ever.”
That stoked the rising tensions that were reflected in comments from Donald Tusk, the head of the European Council, who said on Twitter that the British prime minister seemed more interested in “winning some stupid blame game.” Never mind that a German official said the call was “very friendly,” and that Ms. Merkel did not go beyond the European Union’s previously disclosed objections to Mr. Johnson’s proposal. Those have to do with keeping Northern Ireland in a separate customs union from the rest of Ireland and giving Northern Ireland’s assembly the right to veto the arrangement.
Mr. Johnson has pledged to leave the European Union at the end of the month, “come what may,” but a law recently passed by Parliament requires him to request a third Brexit extension if he fails to reach an agreement that has the approval of both the European Union and the British Parliament. Perhaps prompted by Downing Street’s histrionics, a hard-line Brexit group criticized Ms. Merkel with a familiar anti-German trope, posting on Twitter a photograph of her and saying, “We didn’t win two world wars to be pushed around by a kraut.”
Though British lawmakers have three times voted against a Brexit deal, most of them oppose a “no deal” Brexit because of the widely held belief that it would be economically disastrous for the country. “What’s at stake is not winning some stupid blame game,” the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, said in a frustrated Twitter post addressed directly to Mr. Johnson. “At stake is the future of Europe and the UK as well as the security and interests of our people.”
The British government outlined its latest preparations for that scenario on Tuesday, amid warnings that leaving without an agreement could come with a potentially heavy cost to public finances, and to businesses that would face new administrative burdens. There are dangers for Mr. Johnson in appearing to pursue a scorched earth strategy. Late on Tuesday, Downing Street said it hopes to schedule a meeting this week with the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, a vocal critic of the prime minister’s proposal.
According to British officials, Mrs. Merkel outlined serious objections to Mr. Johnson’s proposals on how to prevent checks on goods on the border between Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, and Ireland, which will remain part of the European Union. For Mr. Johnson himself, however, winning the blame game could be critical to winning the election most analysts say is coming soon, perhaps next month. His Conservative Party faces a significant threat from the hard-line Brexit Party, which will seize on any perceived weakness in Mr. Johnson’s dealings with the European Union over Brexit — particularly if he appears too compliant in delaying Brexit.
The frontier is highly sensitive politically, and there is no desire on anyone involved in the negotiations to introduce checkpoints at or near it. Since Mr. Johnson took office in July, his aides have insisted that the prime minister was using “all means necessary,” in the words of his principal adviser, Dominic Cummings, to leave the European Union by the end of October. The message to pro-Brexit voters was that, if ultimately Mr. Johnson had to accept another delay, it would be the fault of many others, not him.
Mr. Johnson has proposed keeping Northern Ireland largely under many of the European Union’s rules for agriculture, and for product and environmental standards for goods, so long as Northern Ireland political parties back such an approach. “What drives Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings is that they want an election,” said Jonathan Faull, a former senior official in the European Commission. “They also want the best possible circumstances in which to hold it, and that is a blame game.”
But Mr. Johnson wants to take Northern Ireland, along with the rest of the United Kingdom, out of the European Union’s trading and customs system. He argues that, while some customs checks will be necessary, they can be minimized and take place well away from the border. To Charles Grant, the director of the Center for European Reform, a research institute, it is all about constructing a narrative of “the people versus the elite.”
That notion has been rejected by the Irish government in Dublin, and it also proved to be a sticking point for Mrs. Merkel, according to British officials. “They understand theater in Downing Street,” Mr. Grant said, “and the theater of ‘the people’s Boris’ being pushed around by out-of-touch judges and other European Council leaders, suits his narrative.”
Downing Street said on Tuesday that the only alternative the European Union had suggested to Mr. Johnson’s proposal was the so-called Irish backstop plan rejected three times by Britain’s Parliament. That would require Northern Ireland to stay in Europe’s customs union, perhaps indefinitely. There is some evidence the strategy is working. A survey for the Daily Telegraph by the polling firm, ComRes, found that only just over half of voters, or 56 percent, would blame Mr. Johnson if Brexit does not happen on Oct 31, while 83 percent said they would blame Parliament.
Opposition parties in Britain criticized the latest statements from Downing Street, accusing officials there of trying to mask what they said was his desire for a no-deal Brexit. But the success of this approach depends in large part on Mr. Johnson and his allies hammering away at his continuing efforts to break free from the bloc, despite the legislation passed by Parliament to stop Britain from leaving without an agreement.
“Boris Johnson will never take responsibility for his own failure to put forward a credible deal,” said Keir Starmer, who speaks for the opposition Labour Party on Brexit. “His strategy from day one has been for a no-deal Brexit.” Some analysts believe the government might be trying to engineer an “accidental Brexit,” throwing up so many legal and political obstacles that the European Union runs out of time to authorize an extension before Oct. 31.
“They’re hoping they can exploit the confusion about an extension by pushing Parliament, pushing the courts, pushing the E.U,” said Bronwen Maddox, the director of the Institute for Government, a London-based research organization.
Still, if Britain’s Supreme Court ultimately instructs Mr. Johnson to request another Brexit extension, he will have no choice but to comply. Were he to refuse, senior cabinet members, like the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, would likely resign, plunging the government into crisis.
That has not stopped Mr. Johnson’s aides from floating any number of provocative rumors. Britain, they said, could pressure other European nations to veto any extension of Brexit. If trapped inside the bloc, it could threaten to block business in Brussels, including agreement on a new European budget.
Britain might also refuse to nominate a European Commissioner, causing legal complications since every member state is required to have one. It might even send a hard-liner to Brussels, perhaps even the populist Brexit campaigner, Nigel Farage, to act as a cat among the pigeons.
On Monday, an anonymous Downing Street official suggested to the political editor of the Spectator magazine that the British would withdraw cooperation, perhaps on security issues, from governments that agree to an extension.
“We will make clear privately and publicly that countries which oppose delay will go the front of the queue for future cooperation — cooperation on things both within and outside E.U. competences. Those who support delay will go to the bottom of the queue,” the Spectator quoted the official as saying.
Previous British efforts to divide European Union nations over Brexit have failed, and experts believe this time is no different. Such tactics, Mr. Grant said, “will annoy people but are not going to change anything fundamentally.”
Blocking business in Brussels is another empty threat since Britain, like other members, has veto rights only on certain issues and Europe’s budget decision will not arrive until next June. As for nominating a Brexit hard-liner as a European Commissioner, that, too, would lead to a stalemate because he or she would have to pass a vetting process.
“What would be the point of nominating Nigel Farage?” Mr. Faull said. “He wouldn’t get through the European Parliamentary hearing.”
Whatever the outcome of Brexit, he added, the British will still need to engage with Brussels on trade and other issues. “They are going to have to talk serious business soon, so why antagonize and poison that discussion?” he said.