‘Collaborators’ undermining Brexit bet, says Johnson
london — Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday some British lawmakers hoping to block Brexit were engaged in “terrible” collaboration with the European Union by undermining London’s negotiating hand and so making no deal more likely.
Hours after senior lawmakers said they would seek to prevent any attempt to ignore parliament over Brexit, Johnson used a question-and-answer session on Facebook to attack them.
“There is a terrible kind of collaboration as it were going on between those who think they can block Brexit in parliament and our European friends,” Johnson said on Facebook.
“We need our European friends to compromise and the more they think that there’s a chance that Brexit can be blocked in parliament, the more adamant they are in sticking to their position,” Johnson said. —
london — Britain’s former finance minister, Philip Hammond, said on Wednesday he was confident that parliament could block a no-deal Brexit if unelected people around Prime Minister Boris Johnson tried to force such a disorderly outcome.
Hammond said demands to remove the Irish border backstop were part of a wrecking strategy by unidentified advisers around Johnson that put the United Kingdom on an “inevitable” course towards a no-deal Brexit.
“To set the bar for negotiations so high that we inevitably leave without a deal would be a betrayal,” Hammond told BBC radio. He cast such a demand as “a wrecking tactic” by those who are “pulling the strings” around Johnson in Downing Street.
Hammond said any attempt to bypass parliament would propel the United Kingdom into a constitutional crisis.
“He has to listen to parliament and parliament is clearly opposed to a no-deal exit,” he said. “I am confident that parliament has the means to express that view.”
Writing in the Times of London on Wednesday, Hammond says: “It’s time for our government to demonstrate a commitment to a genuine negotiation with the EU to achieve a deal that will maintain Britain’s trade with its nearest neighbors, protect British jobs and ensure our future prosperity.”
Boris Johnson said on Wednesday Britons wanted politicians to get on with delivering Brexit and were frustrated that they had failed to ensure a departure from the European Union.
Asked if he would hold an election after October 31 to ensure parliament could not prevent Brexit on that date, Johnson said: “I think the public have had a lot of elections and electoral events.
“I think what they want us to do is deliver Brexit on October 31 and I never tire of telling you that is what we are going to do,” Johnson said in a “People’s PMQs” question-and-answer session on Facebook.
“We’re coming out of the European Union on October 31,” he said. “I think that is what the British people voted for and they feel very frustrated that three years after they gave that instruction, and after the British parliament
The Telegraph newspaper reported on Wednesday that the House of Commons speaker plans to block Johnson from bypassing parliament to take Britain out of the European Union.
John Bercow told an audience in Scotland that lawmakers can prevent a no-deal Brexit scheduled for the end of October and that he would fight any attempt to prorogue, or suspend, parliament “with every bone in my body”.
“We cannot have a situation in which parliament is shut down — we are a democratic society,” the Telegraph quoted Bercow as saying at an event on the sidelines of the Edinburgh Festival.
“And parliament will be heard and nobody is going to get away, as far as I am concerned, with stopping that happening,” added the 56-year-old who says he voted ‘Remain’ in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Johnson has said Britain will leave the world’s biggest trading bloc on Halloween, whether it has a divorce agreement or not, but a majority of lawmakers oppose that.
They have been investigating what parliamentary procedures can be used to prevent a no-deal Brexit, and in July backed proposals to make it harder for Johnson to do that. Johnson, who replaced Theresa May has refused to rule out proroguing the House of Commons and Brexit supporters have vociferously encouraged him to do so if necessary to ensure an exit on October 31. —
I think what they want us to do is deliver Brexit on October 31 and I never tire of telling you that is what we are going to do.
To set the bar for negotiations so high that we inevitably leave without a deal would be a betrayal of the 2016 referendum result.
We cannot have a situation in which parliament is shut down — we are a democratic society. And parliament will be heard…