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Almost certainly they haven't, and Johnson doesn't seem much to care for reality, either:"Reality, meet Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson, meet reality. I don't think you've ever met before."
According to an account of the meeting, the prime minister was told by his EU counterparts in no uncertain terms that the UK’s plan to replace the backstop by allowing Northern Ireland to stick to common EU rules on food and livestock (known as SPS) was not enough to prevent customs checks on the vast majority of goods that cross the Irish border.
At that point, a befuddled Mr Johnson turned to David Frost, his chief negotiator, and Stephen Barclay, Brexit secretary, and said: “So you’re telling me the SPS plan doesn’t solve the customs problem?”
The exchange, according to one EU official, was part of an abrupt “learning curve” for Mr Johnson in his first face-to-face meeting with Mr Barnier and Mr Juncker since he took office.
Another official describes the prime minister gradually “slumping” in his chair as the reality of the UK’s negotiating position and the limited time left to strike an agreement dawned on him. “He wasn’t used to hearing it”, added the official.
Mr Juncker told his college of commissioners in Strasbourg on Tuesday that the Luxembourg lunch was the first time that “Boris Johnson understood the meaning of the single market”. A Number 10 official rejected descriptions of the lunch as “nonsense”.
Although the EU has repeated ad nauseam that the UK’s partial solution to customs checks is not a credible alternative to the legally operational backstop, that message does not seemed to have been relayed to Number 10.
EU fears Brexit reality has dawned too late for Boris Johnson
EU fears Brexit reality has dawned too late for Boris Johnson Officials have become increasingly pessimistic about the prospects of a deal with the UK’s prime minister FT subscribers can click here to...
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