Boris Johnson will not sit down for Brexit talks with EU leaders until they agree to renegotiate the exit deal struck with Theresa May, Downing Street has signalled.
The new prime minister’s hardline position has put Britain on a path towards a no-deal Brexit on October 31 unless the EU reverses its opposition to renegotiating the withdrawal agreement.
It comes as the new Brexit war cabinet meets on Monday afternoon, chaired by no-deal planning chief Michael Gove, and the government prepares a major £100m advertising campaign to raise public awareness of how to prepare.
Johnson has already told French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel that they must agree to scrap the Irish backstop hated by Brexiteer Tories or the UK will leave without a deal on Halloween.
He has not yet spoken to Irish PM Leo Varadkar, the key figure to secure changes to the backstop, which is an insurance plan to maintain an invisible border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
A Number 10 spokesperson suggested Johnson was unlikely to meet EU leaders before the G7 summit in Biarritz, France, at the end of August – unless they agree to reopening the deal.
“The PM has been clear that he obviously wants to meet EU leaders and negotiate but not to sit down and be told the EU cannot possibly reopen the withdrawal agreement,” the spokesperson told reporters
“That is the message he has been giving to leaders when he has spoken to them on the telephone so far.
“The PM wants to leave with a deal and we hope the EU will change their position on the withdrawal (agreement) and the backstop.”
Earlier, Foriegn Secretary Dominic Raab also called for movement from Brussels.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We’ll keep straining every sinew if there is a deal to be done, but the EU will need to move and, if they don’t, it is incredibly important that we are ready for eventualities.”
Johnson was visiting Scotland on Monday where he will hold talks with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson.
During the visit, he said he was “reaching out the hand of friendship to all our friends and partners” in Europe, but added that the government was looking for “very very profound changes” to be made to the withdrawal deal.
Johnson told journalists: “In our approach to the negotiations we are not going to be aloof, we are not going to be stand-offish, we’re are not going to wait for our friends to come to us, we are going to reach out, we are going to engage and we’re going to ask for obviously very, very profound changes to the current basis for leaving the EU, the present withdrawal agreement is dead, the backstop must go, but once the backstop goes then it might be possible for progress to be made.”
The PM added: “The formal position of the EU is unchanged, that was very clear from what Jean-Claude Juncker said.
“But I think they understand the UK and the EU are two great political entities and I am sure it is possible for us to come up with a new deal that will be for the benefit of both sides, that is what we are aiming for.”
Sturgeon is expected to accelerate plans for a second Scottish independence referendum if Johnson ploughs ahead with a no-deal Brexit.
Davidson, who has clashed with Johnson over several years, has also made clear her opposition to no deal.
She used a Mail On Sunday column to say: “When I was debating against the pro-Brexit side in 2016, I don’t remember anybody saying we should crash out of the EU with no arrangements in place to help maintain the vital trade that flows uninterrupted between Britain and the European Union.”
It came as Britain’s largest business group warned that neither the UK nor the EU is ready for a no-deal Brexit.
At least 50 trade associations and thousands of companies from all areas of the UK’s economy were consulted to deliver 200 recommendations in the report by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).
The group welcomed Britain’s preparations for Brexit, but said that the “unprecedented nature” of exiting the bloc meant “some aspects cannot be mitigated”.
A government spokesperson noted that “crucially” the CBI had observed “that the UK is ahead of the EU in planning for no-deal”.