Boris warns May Brexit transition cannot exceed 2 years
BORIS JOHNSON says the Brexit transition must last “not a second more” than two years as he laid out a series of challenges to Theresa May on the eve of the Conservative party conference. The Foreign Secretary insisted there can be “no monkeying around” over the date the implementation phase ends, and also said Britain must not accept any new EU rules or European Court of Justice rulings after March 2019.
But Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader who will be among the first speakers when the conference begins tomorrow, attacked Mr Johnson by saying that “serious people” need to be in charge of Brexit.
Ms Davidson, who along with Mr Johnson is one of the favourites to succeed Mrs May as Tory leader, said that “overoptimism” about the future of Britain outside the EU “sells people short” - a direct reference to Mr Johnson’s 4,000-word Brexit essay in The Daily Telegraph a fortnight ago.
The party conference in Manchester is seen by many as a make-or-break moment for Mrs May’s hopes of
leading the Conservatives for years to come, and likely to be dominated by Brexit and the leadership question.
Mrs May is under pressure on multiple fronts, and has been told by Tory MPS she must walk away from EU talks at Christmas if Brussels fails to start negotiating a trade deal by then.
Party grandees including former Brexit minister David Jones today insist the Prime Minister should give formal notice that the UK will leave without a deal if “serious” talks on a free trade deal have not begun by the end of the year.
They say Britain has “nothing to fear” from a no-deal scenario and must not be “held to ransom” by the EU.
It comes after Jean-claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, said “miracles” would be needed for talks on a trade deal to begin by the end of October.
Mrs May looked humiliated yesterday when she attended an EU summit in Estonia and was kept as far away as possible from the German Chancellor Angela Merkel in official pictures. At one point Mrs Merkel appeared to be making a “binoculars” gesture towards Mrs May because she was so far away from her.