LUXEMBOURG -- Talks between the leaders of Britain and the European Union ended Monday with no breakthrough over how Britain can manage its planned Oct. 31 exit from the EU.
The first in-person meeting between British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was a "working lunch" over Brexit, but Juncker "recalled that it is the U.K.'s responsibility to come forward with legally operational solutions," the European Commission said in a statement afterward. "Such proposals have not yet been made."
Johnson then traveled a couple hundred yards to a meeting with Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, but he was booed by hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Luxembourg City's medieval streets. A few dozen of the protesters chanted, "Tell the truth, stop the coup," denouncing Johnson's plans to steer the country out of the EU next month with or without a transition deal to ease the way.
The protests were intense enough that Johnson canceled his half of a planned news conference alongside Bettel, leaving Luxembourg's prime minister to gesture to an empty podium while suggesting that Johnson had deceived the British public during the 2016 Brexit campaign.
"Before Brexit," Bettel said, "people said to some voters that they will get money back from social insurance, that Brexit will be done in 24 hours and everything will be good. ... No one was able to say, 'Sorry, this is a lie.'"
In 2016, Johnson campaigned for Brexit in front of a backdrop saying that Britain was sending about $62 million a day to the EU, and that leaving the bloc would instantly free up that money for the National Health Service. That $62 million amount was widely disputed and later abandoned as a campaign pledge.
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There have been few outward signs of progress to suggest that Britain and the EU will find a way to sort out the thorniest of issues -- the question of how to handle the land border between the Republic of Ireland, a member of the EU, and Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. Johnson has said that he will not carry out a deal negotiated by his predecessor, Theresa May.
"We do not know what the British want in detail, precisely and accurately, and we are still waiting for alternative proposals," Juncker said on German public radio Sunday. Brexit, he said, was a "continental tragedy."
Neither side wants to see the return of a hard border between the two, which would be disruptive to trade and Ireland's economy. It would also represent a step back for the peace process that has brought stability to the island. To ensure that the border remains open, EU officials have been insisting on what is commonly known as a "backstop," an insurance mechanism to ensure that goods continue to flow freely.
Johnson has rejected such an approach, but EU officials say that he has not put forward a credible alternative, despite the bloc's negotiators signaling that they are open to new ideas as long as the border remains "soft" -- namely free of physical checks for goods or animals being transferred between the two sides.
Johnson is weighing a proposal that would put parts of the Northern Ireland economy into an "all-Ireland" zone. That would presumably subject Northern Ireland to EU rules and standards, even as it remains a part of the United Kingdom, while preserving the open border.
Critics say, however, that this would leave Northern Ireland as a de facto part of the EU and its free-trade area, and in the process fragment the United Kingdom.
But Johnson has said that even if there is no agreement on the backstop or the larger Brexit, he would ignore Parliament and refuse to seek an extension from the Oct. 31 deadline.
Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, Johnson compared his country to the Incredible Hulk and his alter ego, Bruce Banner, saying the mild-mannered scientist "might be bound in manacles, but when provoked he would explode out of them."
"The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets," Johnson told the paper. "Hulk always escaped, no matter how tightly bound in he seemed to be -- and that is the case for this country. We will come out on the 31st of October, and we will get it done."
EU policymakers quickly mocked the analogy.
"The Hulk comparison is infantile. Is the EU supposed to be scared by this?" Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian lawmaker who is leading Brexit negotiations inside the European Parliament, wrote on Twitter.
Mark Ruffalo, the actor who has played the Hulk in a series of movies since 2012, also rebutted the comments -- and apparently referred to the character's two solo theatrical films in 2003 and 2009, which were considered box-office disappointments.
"Boris Johnson forgets that the Hulk only fights for the good of the whole," Ruffalo wrote on Twitter. "Mad and strong can also be dense and destructive. The Hulk works best when he is in unison with a team, and is a disaster when he is alone."
Information for this article was contributed by Matina Stevis-Gridneff of The New York Times; and by Michael Birnbaum, William Booth and Quentin Aries of The Washington Post.
A Section on 09/17/2019