Boris Johnson has claimed there will be no more trade and security talks unless the EU adopts a “fundamental change of approach”, as he seeks to increase pressure on Brussels to give ground in the negotiations. In a televised statement on Friday, the prime minister said the country would have to prepare for a no-deal scenario on 1 January, with his spokesman further toughening up the rhetoric later in the day. “The trade talks are over – the EU have effectively ended them yesterday when they said they did not want to change their negotiating position,” the spokesman said, while stopping short of announcing the UK’s intention to decisively walk away. Downing Street’s bravado was swiftly undermined in Brussels, where officials and leaders leaving an EU summit said they had no reason to believe the negotiations would not continue.
The European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, tweeted: “The EU continues to work for a deal, but not at any price. As planned, our negotiation team will go to London next week to intensify these negotiations.” The olive branch was quickly rebuffed by No 10, with the UK chief negotiator, Lord Frost, telling Michel Barnier on Friday afternoon in a phone call that there was no need to come to London next week. Frost told the EU chief negotiator there was “no basis for negotiations in London as of Monday” unless Brussels came up with a new plan over the weekend, said a Downing Street spokesman. However, a European commission spokesman said: “As agreed during this week’s negotiations, Michel Barnier held a videoconference today with his UK counterpart David Frost to discuss next week’s negotiations. Both chief negotiators agreed to talk again on Monday to discuss the structure of these talks.” Describing the move to halt negotiations as a “controlled explosion”, the Brexit analyst Mujtaba Rahman said there was still hope that a deal could be done by the next time the EU leaders meet in Berlin on 15 November. “Despite the noise – and it is loud – the fundamentals have not changed for both sides,” said Rahman. He added that there was movement from France on the issue of fisheries, which could open the door to talks restarting as long as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, did not have to “sign the death warrant” for Channel fishing fleets in the Boulogne region. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said: “We intend to focus on the negotiations and these negotiations will continue in the next few days.” Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, suggested Johnson’s call for intensive talks and compromise, both of which were on offer, was simply an invitation to continue with the negotiation, despite Johnson’s claim that this summit had been his deadline for a deal. He said: “I look with a positive sense to Boris Johnson’s reaction now that he is implicitly stating that he also now wants the talks to continue.” In his statement, Johnson said that with only 10 weeks left until the Brexit transition period ended, he had to make a judgment about the likely outcome and to prepare the country. “A lot of progress has been made on such issues as social security and aviation, nuclear cooperation, and so on,” he said, but “for whatever reason, it’s clear from the [EU] summit that after 45 years of [UK] membership they are not willing, unless there’s some fundamental change of approach, to offer this country the same terms as Canada”.
“I concluded that we should get ready for 1 January with arrangements that are more like Australia’s – based on simple principles of global free trade,” he told reporters in the pooled broadcast statement. Johnson’s spokesman later said there was “only any point in Michel Barnier coming to London next week” if he undertook talks on the basis set out by Johnson, discussing all areas of contention and working on legal text. But such a change in approach was already evident on Friday, following a two-hour discussion by EU leaders the previous day on the bloc’s flexibility, during which they were made to hand over their tablets and phones to avoid leaks. Macron accused Downing Street of using fisheries tactically and insisted it was not his job to make the British prime minister “happy”, but he conceded that the post-Brexit arrangements for British seas would not maintain the status quo for the EU fishing fleet. “If there is a deal, it must allow us to define the modalities of access for our fishermen to British waters,” he said. “Will the situation be the same as it is today? No, it will not, that’s for sure. Our fishermen know it. We know that too. We are going to help them. We need to have a compromise on access, but we know it will not be of the same nature. It won’t be as ambitious. It will come with conditions, perhaps we will have to pay for it.” Merkel said the EU should find a way to accommodate the UK’s wish to diverge from the EU rule book, while ensuring fair competition. “If we want to have an agreement, then both sides need to make a move toward each other,” she said. “We need to react quickly. We can’t mutually rule out that each of us has different rules to a certain extent.” Rutte later said of his fellow leaders’ comments: “The positive of the last two days is the EU has, by implication, signalled we’re ready to compromise, which has always been our position. “We will not get 100% of what we want, that’s impossible in a negotiation, you always have to find compromise, you always have to find ways within the mandate Michel Barnier has received from the European council … He is a skilled negotiator, he will be able to explore where within the mandate there is room for compromise and that room is there.” The UK financial services industry expressed its deep disappointment at the “political game of chicken”, with Catherine McGuinness, the policy chair at the City of London Corporation, saying businesses and households on both sides of the Channel “stand to be the main losers”.