Johnson finds fault with new Brexit deal

LONDON — Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday poured cold water on current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s new Brexit deal with the European Union, saying he would “find it hard” to vote for it in Parliament.

Johnson said he hoped Sunak’s deal would work, but argued that it did not amount to “the U.K. taking back control” — a key Brexit slogan.

The government has been bracing for a response from Johnson, a strong backer of Brexit who was ousted from office by ethics scandals in July 2022. Johnson is widely believed to hope for a political comeback, and blames Conservative colleagues, including Sunak, for bringing him down.

Johnson left office with an unresolved dispute between the U.K. and the bloc over trade rules for Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that shares a border with an EU-member nation.

Under Sunak, the two sides struck a deal, which was announced Monday. The “Windsor Framework” agreement will ease customs checks and other hurdles for goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. that were imposed after Brexit to maintain an open border between the north and its EU neighbor the Republic of Ireland. The open border is a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process.

Sunak has also said U.K. lawmakers will get to vote on the deal.

“This is not about the U.K. taking back control,” Johnson said during a speech Thursday in London, referring to the fact that some EU rules will still apply in Northern Ireland. “This is the EU graciously unbending to allow us to do what we want to do in our own country, not by our laws, but by theirs.”