PM says ‘backstop just doesn’t work’ in run-up to meetings with Merkel and Macron

Boris Johnson has claimed that EU leaders will change their positions and allow the UK to scrap the Brexit backstop in the withdrawal agreement.

As the prime minister prepares for face-to-face talks with Angela Merkel of Germany and Emmanuel Macron of France this week, he acknowledged there would be “bumps in the road” before any agreement to drop the plan to prevent a hard border in Ireland.

It follows the leak of cabinet papers this weekend warning that carrying out Johnson’s threat of a no-deal Brexit would cause “incredibly serious” economic harm.

“We will be ready to come out on October 31, deal or no deal,” Johnson said during a visit to Truro on Monday. Now of course our friends and partners on the other side of the Channel are showing a little bit of reluctance at the moment to change their position.

“That’s fine – I’m confident that they will – but in the meantime we have to get ready for a no-deal outcome. I want a deal. We’re ready to work with our friends and partners to get a deal, but if you want a good deal for the UK, you must simultaneously get ready to come out without one.”

Johnson will meet the German chancellor on Wednesday and the French president on Thursday, before the G7 meeting in Biarritz on Saturday.

When asked whether progress would be made during these talks, Johnson replied: “Well, that is, I’m afraid, very much up to our friends, and I hope that they will compromise.

“They have seen that the UK parliament has three times rejected the withdrawal agreement, the backstop just doesn’t work, it’s not democratic and I hope that they will see fit to compromise, but in the meantime we get ready to come out on 31 October.”

A scheduled first meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker, the outgoing European commission president, has been abandoned because Juncker is recovering from surgery to remove his gallbladder. Johnson is also expected to speak to Leo Varadkar, the Irish taoiseach, before the summit.

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No 10 hopes to hammer home a message that EU leaders will have to negotiate with Johnson, after claims that some leaders still hope parliament could stop a no-deal Brexit and force through a deal.

“[The prime minister] has been clear that there cannot be any actual negotiations unless the backstop goes; that’s the message he has delivered to leaders in his phone conversations and he will do that face-to-face,” a Downing Street spokeswoman said.

“We have been clear that what the EU needs to understand is that unless the withdrawal agreement can be reopened and the backstop abolished, there isn’t any prospect of a deal.”

Asked why the meetings with Merkel and Macron were taking place, the Downing Street spokeswoman said: “The PM believes it’s important to speak to the leaders of France and Germany to deliver the message that he’s been setting out through the phone calls face to face.”

Cabinet Office documents from Operation Yellowhammer, reportedly drawn up this month, warned of potential food and fuel shortages, damage to the social care system and a return to a hard border in Northern Ireland if Britain leaves the EU without a deal.