French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron warned his British counterpart against the Brexit on Thursday, saying that the UK could become a United States vassal state. He also said that reopening the negotiations concerning the Irish Backstop is not an option.
"Can the cost for Britain of a hard Brexit -- because Britain will be the main victim -- be offset by the United States of America? No. And even if it were a strategic choice it would be at the cost of a historic vassalization of Britain," said Macron.
Johnson intends to meet with Macron in order to convince him about abandoning the Irish Backstop deal, which makes Theresa May's deal unacceptable to the British Parliament. Brussels has reiterated on several occasions that the Irish Backstop matter is not negotiable and that there is no reason to reopen the negotiations with the UK concerning the Brexit.
“The British are attached to being a great power, a member of the Security Council. The point can’t be to exit Europe and say ‘we’ll be stronger’, before in the end, becoming the junior partner of the United States, which are acting more and more hegemonically,” added Macron after highlighting that he doesn't believe the British people are willing to accept those conditions.
Like Brussels, Macron disregarded any attempt to reopen the negotiations with the UK, especially if the intended outcome is the abandonment of the Irish Backstop deal.
"We won’t jeopardize peace in Ireland, that would be one of the consequences of dropping the so-called backstop,” he explained, “And we shall not accept that Europe becomes a sieve, that there shall be no more checks at the border just because Mr. Johnson does not like the backstop,” he added.
Macron also explained that one of his goals is getting a clearer picture of Johnson's ideas, which he qualifies as "too imprecise".
Merkel Challenged Johnson
Johnson wasn't successful at convincing the Germans to change their position, since German Chancellor Angela Merkel, just like her French counterpart, expressed her skepticism regarding the United Kingdom's alternative to the Irish Backstop.
"The UK has to tell us what ideas it has," said Merkel during a press conference he held with Johnson, "it is not the job of the chancellor to find a solution," she added.
Merkel also challenged Johnson to find a solution in 30 days, proposal that Johnson accepted.
"But possibly, you might find the solution in 30 days, why not? And then we would be a step forward," she said.
The United Kingdom is planning to leave the European Union by October 31, unless the British government asks for another extension and the EU leadership agrees. The British Prime Minister promised his voters, complying with his most Euro-skeptic political allies, to leave by this date with or without a deal, now the negotiations with Brussels are essentially stalled as the parliament rejects the Irish Backstop deal.
The British pound was up 0.14 percent against the dollar as of 12:47 p.m. GMT, trading at $1.2143. The euro eased slightly against the greenback, down 0.05 percent to $1.1078 in London's early afternoon.