Le crunch: are the Brexit talks doomed before they begin?

When Boris Johnson and the new European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met in Downing Street last month, they agreed on one thing immediately: that it was time to stop the sniping, animosity and backbiting that had characterised the first round of the Brexit talks. The Prime Minister emphasised that Britain wanted to be the EU’s close friend and ally.

Only a few weeks later, and already the Brexit wars are back. The two sides are so far apart that many diplomats think there is a better-than-even chance that the talks will fail. One member state is already planning around the central assumption that there will be no deal by the December deadline. For its part, No. 10 is braced for the talks to collapse sooner rather than later. And all this before the negotiations have even started.

For No. 10, the whole point of Brexit was in order that Britain could break free of EU directives — but the first issue to be discussed is the so-called ‘level playing field’. Brussels is adamant that unless Britain gives a long list of undertakings about its future behaviour (including adhering to EU state aid rules), talks cannot proceed. No. 10 says this is preposterous, and that it will not negotiate on this basis.

What Boris Johnson wants from the EU is very different to what Theresa May required. May was determined to avoid — or at least minimise — friction at the border. She proposed a deal where the UK would remain almost half in the single market and the customs union. There would have been what she euphemistically called a ‘common rule book’ (ie, the EU’s rule book) governing manufacturing and agriculture. This was the issue over which Johnson resigned, saying that the UK was ‘headed for the status of a colony’.