UK politicians had hoped to go over chief negotiator’s head to get approval for Chequers plan

The leaders of the EU will not impose new instructions on Michel Barnier to get a Brexit deal, a senior diplomat has confirmed, in a blow to the UK’s hopes of going over the chief negotiator’s head to secure approval for its Chequers plan.

At a summit in Salzburg next week, Europe’s leaders will hear a presentation from Theresa May during a dinner before discussing Brexit among themselves the following day, with just weeks to go before an agreement is needed.

An EU diplomat involved in the Brexit negotiations said the prime ministers and presidents would at that stage discuss the details of an extraordinary Brexit summit pencilled in for November, as previously revealed by the Guardian.

The leaders will also offer some warm words about the best parts of the Chequers proposals, alongside a stern warning about the need for a solution on the issue of avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland.

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However, the diplomat said the leaders would not draw up fresh instructions that deviated from the tough lines on the single market and customs union first published last year.

The diplomat said that in any case it would be up to Barnier himself to ask for additional guidelines on how he should negotiate if he felt he did not have the flexibility he needed.

The comments will come as a blow to the British government, whose most senior members were engaged in a whistle-stop tour of EU capitals over the summer, during which they appealed to leaders to step in to save the talks or face a no-deal scenario.

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The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has said that without a “change in approach from the EU negotiators” there was a “very real risk of a Brexit no deal by accident”.

Sources have suggested it would only be in October that Barnier might seek some extra input in order to finalise the terms of a political declaration on the future deal.

“Legally the commission doesn’t need a new mandate”, the senior EU diplomat said. “The commission needs a mandate for the withdrawal agreement and this is what they have.

“The European council has set some element for the political declaration in March and they’re still relevant and that’s as far as we can go for now. The situation is clear and we know what we want. It’ll also depend on what Michel Barnier will tell the council what his assessment of the situation is.”

The diplomat added: “I don’t see a situation where Michel Barnier says ‘I’m fine with the mandate’ and the heads of state give him another one. If we should give additional guidance, and that is a big if, it would only be done in concerted discussion with the commission.”

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While some sort of extra guidance could be possible in October, EU sources have suggested that the November summit would most likely be a “solemn” event with set-piece speeches in which the UK would be offered “a warm goodbye”, rather than a last-minute scramble to seal the terms of a deal.

The EU has also dismissed claims from Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary, in the Daily Telegraph that the UK would not pay its £39bn divorce bill in the event of no deal, saying it was an attempt by the cabinet minister to play to the crowd.

The EU diplomat said it was a “statement of the obvious” that the settlement spelt out in the withdrawal agreement would no longer stand if it were not turned into a legally ratified treaty.

However, the diplomat said there would be a legal argument in such an event over how much of the bill would still be payable under international law.

“We keep our heads cool as we always do,” the diplomat said. “We know the Telegraph is a UK paper read by an UK audience, not just European Union officials, so we have to see these two parts to it.”



