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Ivan Rogers, who served as Theresa May’s envoy in Brussels until 2017, attacked the political elite “which has great difficulties discerning and telling the truth.”[...]
The former envoy said he doesn’t expect the EU’s remaining 27 nations to offer a fundamentally different Brexit deal -- and not one that inserts a time limit or a unilateral exit clause on the most contentious part of the agreement, the so-called “backstop” for the Irish border.[...]
“Seen from the other side of the Channel, there is simply no political upside whatever for the 27 to offer a new PM, particularly an avid Brexit campaigner and a populist with Trumpite attributes, the basis on which to say that he had delivered some fundamentally different and better deal,” Rogers said in a speech at a wealth management conference in London.
“You can hardly blame them for thinking that what we hear now might well all be bluster," Rogers said. “A flamboyant version of what the previous PM did for 34 months -- tell everyone what they most wanted to hear.” [...]
Rogers said if Johnson becomes prime minister and sticks to his promise not to seek a Brexit extension beyond Oct. 31, then no-deal is a “certainty” because there’s no time to get a better deal before then.
“That is why serious players in Brussels and certain capitals have concluded, as have I, that we are now likely to be headed for a breakdown to no deal,” Rogers said.