LONDON Britain was at sea, lost in a fog of self-doubt. It had dithered only to retreat. And in its pursuit of Brexit, it exuded a conspicuous infirmity of purpose.

When Boris Johnson, now prime minister, resigned as foreign secretary in 2018, he was brutal in his critique of the government he had quit and of its leader, Theresa May.

Now, more than a year after her ouster, trade talks with the European Union are deadlocked, the mood is poisonous, and there are only weeks left to salvage a deal as Britain prepares to leave the blocs economic zone in January.But Mr. Johnson has already achieved what some analysts say is his one overriding objective: to avoid any comparisons of his negotiating style to that of his predecessor, Mrs. May.

While critics lampooned her as weak and risk averse, Mr. Johnson has gone to the other extreme, most recently by threatening to walk away from parts of a Brexit withdrawal agreement that he struck with the European Union only last year.

That prompted outrage, threats of legal action and speculation that the trade negotiations could collapse. But many analysts say this is just another move from Mr. Johnsons hardball Brexit playbook.

He absolutely had to have a bust-up to prove he wasnt Theresa May, said Anand Menon, a professor of European politics at Kings College, London, referring to the governments threat to override parts of an agreement that was designed to prevent the creation of a hard border between Ireland, an E.U. member, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Menon puts at 50:50 the odds of Britains leaving the European Unions economic zone in January with no trade deal at all.

But in stating this month that this would still be a good outcome, Mr. Johnson made a blunt point that, unlike Mrs. May, he has a solid majority in Parliament and the power to take an economic risk by leaving the bloc without a trade agreement.

There is a clarity about what Boris Johnson is doing that was lacking under Theresa May, Professor Menon said, so to that extent he can still bask in the glow of doing better than she did.

Whether that will translate into a deal will be tested in the coming weeks as the Brexit negotiations reach a climax with just a little cautious optimism in the air.

The backdrop to those talks is one of acute mistrust, worsened when Mr. Johnson threatened to walk back part of the withdrawal agreement that he struck last year. But the main theory in Brussels is that this was designed to raise the stakes in the negotiations, gain diplomatic attention and accelerate engagement at the highest political level.

These discussions are stuck on the issues of fisheries quotas and, most seriously, on Britains reluctance to agree on a set of antitrust rules with the European Union that would limit Londons ability to subsidize its own companies (and therefore, Brussels fears, dump cheap goods in continental Europe).

Historically, British governments and particularly ones under the Conservative Party, which Mr. Johnson now leads have tended to spend less cash this way than many of their continental counterparts, making this an odd issue on which to torpedo an agreement.

The blockage seems to come from Mr. Johnsons powerful adviser, Dominic Cummings, who sees no need for Britain to tie itself to any European rules and wants the freedom to subsidize the high-tech industries of the future, said Charles Grant, the director of the Center for European Reform, a research institute.

The combative Mr. Cummings appears content to do without any trade deal with the European Union and, in line with its hardball approach, the British government has gone into battle over an issue that few Britons care about. But there are differing shades of opinion and priorities in Downing Street.

Ultimately I think Boris Johnson wants a deal, Mr. Grant said.

True, Britain is now asking for a much more basic agreement than Mrs. May sought, and the economic gains of striking one are correspondingly lower. But the economy is more important now because the coronavirus has left British businesses reeling and in a weaker position to cope with the fallout of a no deal exit.

In any event, some Brexit watchers think they have seen similar tactics from Mr. Johnson before.

Last year, he talked tough but then retreated and signed the withdrawal agreement from which he is now threatening to reject. He has also been threatening to walk out of the current trade talks since early summer if progress was insufficient. Yet even as seemingly little or nothing of substance was accomplished until recently, his negotiating team remained at the table.

Mr. Johnsons pugilistic negotiating style should therefore not come as a surprise. Even while serving in Mrs. Mays cabinet, he let it be known that he favored a more muscular and unpredictable approach, that he wanted to try to seize the initiative in a set of talks where, in terms of economic scale, Britain is by far the smaller player.

His well-known appetite for making the big play was reflected in private musings, which were quickly leaked, about what President Trump would do to negotiate a Brexit deal. Thered be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos, Mr. Johnson said. Everyone would think hed gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere. Its a very, very good thought.

This strategy, along with a desire to banish the memory of Mrs. Mays premiership, explains much of what has since occurred in the fractious discussions between London and Brussels, and the consequent brinkmanship.

For many supporters of Brexit, Mrs. Mays government was nothing short of a humiliation, with Parliament paralyzed, Britain missing deadlines for leaving the European Union and their project ridiculed. Some also felt that their warnings had been ignored because, while Mrs. May insisted that having no Brexit deal would be better than getting a bad one, few felt that she meant it.

Any negotiator knows that you can only obtain a good outcome if you are willing to walk away from a bad one, Peter Lilley, a former minister who supports Brexit, wrote in 2017.

When Dominic Raab, who is now foreign secretary, resigned as Brexit secretary the following year, he repeated the argument, insisting: To be taken seriously, we must be willing to walk away.

Mr. Johnson, having threatened to do exactly that and having distanced himself so thoroughly from his predecessor has given himself the political space with Brexit supporters to compromise should he opt to do so.

Ultimately, if Boris Johnson wants a deal, he can overcome any opposition in the Conservative Party it will take what it is given, said Mr. Grant, who worked as a journalist in Brussels at the same time as Mr. Johnson in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Its theater and it might work, Mr. Grant said of Mr. Johnsons aggressive style although he added that as with any high wire act, it can always go wrong, particularly with this political performer.

Boris Johnson doesnt necessarily have a strategy for delivering what he wants, Mr. Grant said. He lives from week to week.

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For U.K.s Boris Johnson, Hardball Tactics Seem the Only Way to a Brexit Deal - The New York Times