In his four-page letter to the European Council president, he outlined his Brexit red lines, and said the
backstop cannot form part of an agreed withdrawal agreement. “This is a fact we must both acknowledge,”
he wrote. “I believe the task before us is to strive to find other solutions, and I believe an agreement is
possible.”
Ahead of talks with Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel in Paris and Berlin later this week, he described
the backstop as “anti-democratic” and “inconsistent” with the UK’s plans for a future relationship with the
EU.
But Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, said: “The letter confirms that [Mr] Johnson has no
negotiating strategy. He suggests (unspecified) alternatives to the backstop. And if they don’t work: further
(unspecified) alternatives to the backstop. Why didn’t anyone think of that before.”
Mr Johnson wrote: ”The backstop locks the UK, potentially indefinitely, into an international treaty which
will bind us into a customs union and which applies large areas of single market legislation in Northern
Ireland. The treaty provides no sovereign means of exiting unilaterally and affords the people of Northern
Ireland no influence over the legislation which applies to them.”
He concluded his correspondence, adding: “Time is very short. But the UK is ready to move quickly, and,
given the degree of common ground already, I hope that the EU will be ready to do likewise. I am equally
confident that our parliament would be able to act rapidly if we were able to reach a satisfactory agreement
which did not contain the ‘backstop’: indeed it has already demonstrated that there is a majority for an
agreement on these lines.”
It comes after Mr Johnson insisted he was “confident” of securing fresh concessions from the EU27, who he
claimed were “showing a little bit of reluctance at the moment to change their position”.
He continued: “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.”
Before sending the letter, Mr Johnson also held almost an hour-long phone call with his Irish counterpart,
Leo Varadkar, with the two leaders agreeing to meet in Dublin early in September.
According to No 10, the prime minister indicated the Brexit withdrawal agreement in its current form will
not get through the Commons, and that the “backstop would need to be removed”. But they admitted the
talks remained deadlocked with Brussels, as Mr Varadkar also reiterated the EU’s position that the
agreement “cannot be reopened”.