But Johnson has not yet come back with any ideas for how else to guarantee an open border, E.U. negotiators said.
His Brexit negotiator, David Frost, met with his E.U. counterparts on Wednesday for more than five hours. He proposed stripping away most of the backstop, leaving only a handful of bare-bones provisions, including borderless travel and a single electricity market, E.U. diplomats said.
The two sides met again on Friday at Britain’s request. An E.U. diplomat said discussions focused on a British idea to avoid food safety controls on the Irish border.
E.U. diplomats have gotten the sense that continued talks are probably more for show than for substance.
The lack of engagement by Johnson’s team on the core issues has led to puzzlement about his strategy. Does he genuinely want a deal, but simply does not have realistic ideas about how to get one? Or is it a big bluff, and is he deliberately steering his country toward a Brexit without a safety net?
European policymakers increasingly believe the answer is the latter. They worry about being set up to take the fall.
One diplomat assessed that Johnson needs to pretend negotiations are underway, so he can blame the E.U. for any fallout from a no-deal Brexit. But if Johnson negotiated in earnest, the details — and the compromises — would quickly become public, sapping support from hardcore Brexit advocates who are enthusiastic about leaving without a deal.
“As soon as the details of a deal leak, he’s going to lose the election,” the diplomat said.
[...]
E.U. officials said that if Johnson — or any British leader — asked for an extension beyond the Halloween deadline, he would almost surely receive one, if there were a clear rationale for doing so. Despite some tough talk from Macron and others ahead of previous extensions this year, no E.U. leader wants to be responsible for the chaos likely to be unleashed by a no-deal Brexit, diplomats said.
The British Parliament has legislated to postpone by an additional three months. Johnson, though, said on Thursday he would “rather be dead in a ditch” than request further delay.
Even setting aside the uncertainty about events, there is deep skepticism in Europe that Johnson can be held to his word, and there are concerns about the health of Britain’s democracy.
“A lot of the bridges have been burned. There is a real feeling within the E.U. that Britain cannot be trusted, because the British system cannot be trusted,” said Fabian Zuleeg, the head of the European Policy Center, a Brussels-based think tank. “It is difficult to imagine that any commitment that is made by the leadership can be trusted, because we have seen in the last month how quickly that can change.”
The problem, European officials say, is that the British discussion still bears little relationship to the reality of what the E.U. is willing to agree to.
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