BORIS Johnson clashed with European Council president Donald Tusk at his first summit as Prime Minister over who would be to blame for a failure to reach a Brexit deal.
Tusk said he hoped the Prime Minister would not go down in history as “Mr No Deal” ahead of their face-to-face talks at the G7 summit in Biarritz on Sunday.
But speaking on the plane to Biarritz, the Prime Minister shot back by suggesting that failure to reach a Brexit agreement would also reflect badly on Tusk.
At the summit he will also have his first meeting with US President Donald Trump, where they are expected to discuss a potential post-Brexit trade deal.
Johnson said the gathering of leaders from the UK, US, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan was not a “wonderful boondoggle at some posh hotel”, but a chance to improve the lives of people around the world.
READ MORE: Brexit: Boris Johnson admits getting deal ‘won’t be easy’
Tusk warned he would not co-operate with a No-Deal Brexit, an apparent sign the European Union would not be willing to create a series of side deals to manage the impact.
He said: “One thing I will not cooperate on is No Deal. I still hope that Prime Minister Johnson will not like to go down in history as ‘Mr No Deal’.
“We are willing to listen to ideas that are operational, realistic and acceptable to all member states including Ireland, if and when the UK Government is ready to put them on the table.”
On the way to Biarritz, Johnson responded: “I have made it absolutely clear I don’t want a No-Deal Brexit. But I say to our friends in the EU if they don’t want a No-Deal Brexit then we have got to get rid of the backstop from the treaty.
“If Donald Tusk doesn’t want to go down as ‘Mr No-Deal Brexit’ then I hope that point will be borne in mind by him too.”
The European Council president has previously said there is a “special place in hell” for people who backed Brexit without a clear plan to implement it. Asked if he thought that was aimed at him, the Prime Minister said he didn’t want to get into ‘‘any post-Brexit eschatology.”
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