Johnson’s ‘awesome foursome’ UK tour highlights problems
LONDON >> In Scotland there were boos, in Wales threats of unrest, and on Wednesday, things went little better in Northern Ireland for Britain’s new prime minister, Boris Johnson, as he wound up his tour this week of the nations of the United Kingdom.
If Johnson’s roadshow around what he calls the “awesome foursome” was intended to convert his critics, it instead underscored the hostility in many corners to his promise to lead Britain out of the European Union, or Brexit, on Oct. 31, without any agreement if necessary.
That pledge has already alarmed currency traders and sent the pound sterling tumbling. A morning of breakfast talks in Belfast provided the latest signs of problems for Johnson, who has added “minister for the union” to his job title.
One political leader criticized his grasp of the issues in Northern Ireland, where a majority voted to remain in the European Union. Another warned that his hard-line Brexit policy could lead to a united Ireland.
But undoubtedly, the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, a member of the European Union and its single market, has been the biggest obstacle to Brexit, and it made Wednesday’s visit to Belfast particularly delicate.
To prevent any risk of the reintroduction of controls at the highly sensitive border after Brexit, former British Prime Minister Theresa May signed up to a so-called “Irish backstop.”
The plan would keep the whole of the United Kingdom under some EU rules if a broader trade agreement could not obviate the need for frontier checks.
It was May’s government that fought to extend the backstop to the whole of the United Kingdom as opposed to just Northern Ireland, partly in an unsuccessful effort to placate its Northern Irish partner, the Democratic Unionists.
The backstop, intended as an insurance policy, enraged hard-line Brexit supporters who want to break free of European regulations and argue that it would ‘‘enslave’’ the whole of Britain to Brussels.
Johnson has said he will not accept the backstop or even a time limit upon it, insisting that, whatever happens, the British will not put controls on the Northern Ireland border.
On Wednesday, Mary Lou McDonald, president of Sinn Féin, which promotes a united Ireland, wrote on Twitter that Johnson was “on course to upend our peace and prosperity with his eyes wide open.”
In a BBC interview, she predicted that a “no-deal” Brexit would create chaos. “In the event of a crash Brexit or hard Brexit I can’t see for the life of me how anyone can sustain the argument for the status quo,” she said.