ITV’s Robert Peston believes that the Prime Minister’s plan is not dead yet, but most likely will be within the next 48 hours, as EU chiefs seek to pick it to pieces. Mr Johnson revealed the details of his plans to Tory activists at the party conference on Wednesday. Central to the plan is for Northern Ireland to exit the EU’s customs union at the end of a transition period along with the rest of the UK.

However, Northern Ireland would stay aligned to EU regulations governing agricultural and manufactured goods.

According to Mr Peston trust is one of the main obstacles to a deal being agreed.

The EU doesn’t believe that the UK can complete in time all the necessary legal and technical preparations necessary for any agreement to be secured, he argued.

He wrote: “2021 is the last date for the whole UK to exit from the EU’s single market and customs union (the preferred date for this full Brexit for Johnson is the end of 2020).

“The whole point of that notorious backstop that Brexiteers hate and Johnson wants to dump, is that EU leaders don’t believe Johnson’s Northern Ireland customs and market preparations can be completed in time.

“And if they didn’t trust the more consensual government of Theresa May, why would they trust the spikier one of Boris Johnson?”

Mr Peston also believes that EU leaders are vehemently opposed to the Prime Minister’s plan to allow the North Ireland executive a vote on the new proposals, as well as having the right to review all trading arrangements every four years.

The EU fears that this would seriously destabilise the market.

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He pointed out that “many EU leaders hate the idea that six months before the new Ireland food and goods single market would come into force, it could be scrapped by the Northern Ireland Assembly and Northern Ireland Executive”.

He added: “The market would be at permanent risk of being closed down every four years after that, because Johnson is insisting that Stormont would have to renew consent for the market on that rolling basis.

“This provision would provide a permanent risk to the EU’s stipulation that the all-Ireland economy must be preserved.”

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He concluded: “There is simply deep scepticism in Brussels that the new customs arrangements can be put in place without involving the construction of new infrastructure – against the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement – and EU leaders fear these arrangements would in practice compromise the integrity of the EU single market.

“So for all those reasons, my strong sense is that Paris, Berlin and Dublin will not agree Johnson’s plan.”

Mr Peston’s fears seem to have been confirmed by the EU’s reaction to the prime minister’s proposals.

The Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, warned Mr Johnson that the legal texts tabled “do not fully meet the agreed objectives of the backstop”.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, told the prime minister in his phone call that there remained “problematic points”.

The former Belgian Prime Minister and now MEP Guy Verhofstadt told reporters that “the reaction of the Brexit steering group was not positive. Not positive in that we don’t think really there are the safeguards that Ireland needs”.

EU officials fear that there is practically no chance of any agreement being reached in time for the eU summit on 17 October, with a diplomatic source saying that “unfortunately we are heading for an extension.”

Mr Johnson reiterated his determination in Manchester to leave the EU by the 31st October with or without a deal.

He said: “That is not an outcome we want, it is not an outcome we seek at all – but let me tell you, my friends, it is an outcome for which we are ready.”

He then asked the packed hall in Manchester: “Are we ready for it?” The audience shouted back: “Yes!”

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