Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted Monday a new Brexit deal can be reached to ensure Britain leaves the European Union by the Oct. 31 deadline, as he acknowledged that withdrawing without one would be a “failure” for which he’d be partially to blame.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted Monday a new Brexit deal could be reached to ensure Britain would leave the European Union by the Oct. 31 deadline, as he acknowledged that withdrawing without one would be a “failure” for which he’d be partially to blame.
Later Monday, the government is due to suspend Parliament for five weeks to try to curb rebellious lawmakers who have played havoc with Johnson’s Brexit plans.Johnson, who insists Britain must leave the 28-nation EU in a little more than 50 days, come what may, said in Dublin that leaving without an agreement on divorce terms “would be a failure of statecraft for which we would all be responsible.
The EU says Britain has not produced any concrete proposals for replacing the contentious “backstop,” a provision in the withdrawal agreement reached by Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, that is designed to ensure an open border between EU member Ireland and the U.K.'s Northern Ireland.An open border is crucial to the regional economy and underpins the peace process that ended decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
“In the absence of agreed alternative arrangements, no backstop is no deal for us,” he said. “As for an extension, we’d like to see this dealt with but if there is a good reason to have an extension, we would consider it.” But he has few easy ways out of it. Johnson’s options — all of them extreme — include disobeying the law, which could land him in court or even prison, and resigning so that someone else would have to ask for a delay.
He kicked 21 lawmakers out of the Conservative group in Parliament after they sided with the opposition to pass the law ruling out a no-deal Brexit next month and saw two ministers quit his government — one of them his own brother.
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