The Prime Minister sent a six-page non-paper on the scope of compliance with the EU’s food and plant health rules to Brussels in the hope of moving negotiations forward. But the Government documents have appeared to hinder negotiations with diplomats, officials and politicians frustrated with the lack of genuine progress being made ahead of October 31. The non-binding dossier document sets out how agri-food checks could be carried out between Northern Ireland and the rest of Great Britain in order to protect the EU’s single market.

Mr Johnson has previously set out plans for the creation of an agri-foods standards zone, where Northern Ireland aligns to EU rules, in a bid to replace the controversial backstop.

One official familiar with the secretive Brexit talks described the new document as an effort to “explain to us how our SPS system works”.

An EU diplomat said the new plan suggests the Prime Minister is rowing back on his previous offer and now wants to cherry-pick which of the bloc’s rules Northern Ireland will align with.

They said: “The problem is the Government is trying to sell us an empty-packet solution for something that underpins the safety and security of 500 million European consumers and 1.5 million Northern Irish citizens.”

“Taking risks with the single market is the same as taking risks with the peace in Ulster,” the source added.

“Different unchecked regulatory zones on the island of Ireland facilitates ghosts from the past and causes a gaping hole in the single market.”

Critics consider Mr Johnson’s plans legally inoperable and against the promises made by Theresa May to protect the bloc’s single market.

No EU leader, especially Ireland’s Leo Varadkar, will sign up to anything that doesn’t meet the previous commitments, according to a European source.

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“Our politicians won’t take risks with the single market,” they said.

EU rules state that checks on animal and plant products and livestock must be carried out at its external borders.

There was a hope that with Northern Ireland aligning to the bloc’s rules, these checks would be able to take place elsewhere.

But now the UK is seeking to divide the EU’s agri-food rules into three categories – ones that Northern Ireland would align to via dynamic alignment, ones that wouldn’t require alignment and a third where further discussions will be needed if alignment is required.

This plan was largely presented in one of the first three so-called non-papers handed to EU negotiators by the Government.

The other two focused on customs and high-risk industrial manufactured goods, including theories of how to avoid checks.

Mr Johnson wants to ensure Northern Ireland remains in the same customs territory as the rest of Great Britain.

But EU officials are sceptical that this will allow an acceptable plan because there are no clear details on how customs duties on SPS goods could be collected.

Brussels believes separating customs and regulatory issues is unachievable because of how integrated the single market is.

An official said: “They say on customs you can apply a lot of techniques, but once a product that is of different standards is within the single market territory – where do we go?

“We don’t have any tools to deal with it.”

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, this morning briefed the EU Parliament’s Brexit Steering Group on the papers.

The Frenchman suggested that the bloc is “still ready to start” with serious talks on the backstop, but said no acceptable plans had yet to be received.

“We are still ready to work on any new legal and operational proposal from the UK,” he said.

Philippe Lamberts, who sits on the influential committee, said: “Barnier had nothing to report because there is nothing happening.

“We do not have anything to negotiate on.”

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