British PM Boris Johnson has claimed a no-deal Brexit would be “a failure of statecraft,” for which he would be partly responsible, in sharp contrast with his previous, positive comments about the UK exiting the EU without a deal.

Speaking at a joint press conference in Dublin on Monday with Taoiseach (Irish PM) Leo Varadkar, Johnson ostensibly reined in his usual cavalier “do or die” rhetoric on Brexit. The UK prime minister insisted that he wanted an agreement to be struck with Brussels, admitting that he would be partly to blame if a deal could not be secured.

I have looked carefully at no-deal...the UK could certainly get through it, but, be in no doubt, that outcome would be a failure of statecraft for which we would all be responsible.

In a somewhat veiled threat to supporters of a hard Brexit, Varadkar warned Johnson that there was “no such thing as a clean break,” insisting that such a scenario would lead to “severe disruption” for both British and Irish people.

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The Irish premier also suggested that agreeing post-Brexit trade deals with the US and other nations outside of the EU would be a “Herculean task” for the UK.

Varadkar also revealed that he had “not received” any legally-binding new proposals from the UK government for alternatives to the contentious Irish backstop, putting him at odds with Johnson’s recent claims that progress was being made.

Johnson has insisted that the backstop, which would see Northern Ireland remaining tied to EU rules to prevent a hard border across the island of Ireland while negotiations for a withdrawal continue, has to be ripped up from any deal he’s willing to sign up-to.

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