PM Johnson faces battle over ‘great new’ Brexit deal
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the UK had achieved a “great new deal” on Brexit with the EU despite doubts over whether the agreement will be ratified by the British parliament.
The UK leader appeared buoyed and even a little bullish, nodding with enthusiasm as he appeared alongside EU Commission President JeanClaude
Juncker after talks in Brussels.
“Now is the moment for us to get Brexit done and then together to work on building our future partnership, which I think can be incredibly positive both for the UK and for the EU,” Mr Johnson said.
In his only acknowledgement of the shadows cast by the rejection of the deal by his allies, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, and the uphill struggle he faces in parliament to pass the agreement, Mr Johnson called on MPs at home to rally around him.
“I hope very much now, speaking of elected representatives, that my fellow MPs in Westminster do now come together to get Brexit done, to get this excellent deal over the line and deliver Brexit without any more delay,” Mr Johnson said.
For his part Mr Juncker, who approached the podium with less enthusiasm, expressed, for the record, that while he was happy a deal had been reached he was unhappy Britain would be departing the EU.
He also said there would be no extension to the Brexit deadline and that he looked forward to forging the EU’s new relationship with Britain after October 31. These remarks seemed a vote of confidence in Mr Johnson rather than an outright rejection of a possible future extension.
“We have concluded a deal. So there is not an argument for delay. It has to be done now,” Mr Juncker said.
When the pair returned with Brexit negotiators. including Michel Barnier, Mr Juncker was asked about the DUP’s rejection of the deal.
The Northern Irish party rejected the deal even before Mr Johnson and Mr Juncker, in a couple of tweets, had released news of their new deal to the world. At a pre-summit
briefing, a senior EU official tried to play for time. “Expect the unexpected,” he said. If a deal could be struck on Thursday, he predicted that it could be ratified by the EU parliament by October 31.
Later, the DUP reiterated their rejection, saying that the proposals would not be “beneficial to the economic well-being of Northern Ireland and they undermine the integrity of the union”. In a particularly stark rebuke, the unionist party said that the deal “drives a coach and horses through the professed sanctity of the Belfast Agreement”, a reference to the Good Friday Agreement, the 1998 peace accord to end violence in Northern Ireland.
Outlining the particulars of the deal, Mr Barnier said that securing peace on the island of Ireland had been at the heart of the frantic days and nights of negotiations to get the agreement to this point.
He said the UK and the EU had “squared the circle” when it came to customs arrangements for Northern Ireland, effectively scrapping the backstop proposed by Mr Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May.
The new proposal, Mr Barnier said, would avoid a hard border, protect the whole of Ireland’s economy and maintain the integrity of the single European market while also allowing Northern Ireland to retain its UK customs arrangements.
As such, procedures applicable to goods will apply on their entry to Northern Ireland and not across the island of Ireland, with the UK making sure customs procedures are upheld.
Even before the summit ended it was clear that Mr Johnson’s next fight lay in Parliament. EU officials have regularly referred to the difficulty of reaching an agreement with the UK with the parliamentary arithmetic as it stands. Opposition leaders in the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats condemned the deal. Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage also slammed the deal, saying it meant “we will not be making our own laws in our own country”.
MPs approved a rare Saturday sitting that could allow Mr Johnson’s deal to pass before the October 31 deadline. However, the house also approved, by a wafer-thin margin, allowing MPs a vote on the prospect of a second referendum, a potentially devastating outcome for the prime minister.
MPs approved a rare Saturday sitting that could allow Mr Johnson’s deal to pass before the deadline of October 31