UK’s Johnson taped predicting meltdown
More support ‘unification’
LONDON, June 9, (Agencies): British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson risked a fresh Brexit row on Friday after being secretly recorded predicting a “meltdown” in the negotiations and implying US President Donald Trump might handle them better.
Prime Minister Theresa May responded to his latest indiscreet remarks by saying only that Johnson had “strong views about Brexit” while the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier called the foreign minister’s contributions “always very stimulating”.
Speaking in Brussels, Barnier responded to accusations from other British eurosceptics that the EU side was being too tough by warning that he would not be “intimidated by this form of blame game”.
May said Brexit was “a complex process,” adding that the contentious issue of the post-Brexit future of the Irish border – dismissed by Johnson as “so small” – was in fact “very important”.
“The Foreign Secretary has strong views on Brexit but so do I,” she told Sky News while on a visit to Canada for the G7 summit.
In the recording of a private conversation carried by BuzzFeed News, Britain’s free-wheeling top diplomat also revealed sensitive details of talks with the United States over North Korea and plans to counter Russian aggression, all the while musing about relations with China. The recording was of a conversation with Conservative activists earlier this week in which Johnson also said the government was reaching a phase in Brexit negotiations “where we are much more combative with Brussels”.
“You’ve got to face the fact there may now be a meltdown,” he said, ahead of a key EU summit at the end of June.
He added, according to further quotes revealed in The Times: “Take the fight to the enemy – absolutely right. We need to – and we will.”
Johnson revealed he was “increasingly admiring” of the US president, adding: “Imagine Trump doing Brexit.
Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon’s pro-independence Scottish National Party is leading a push to boost immigration to the sparsely populated northern tip of Britain, an opposite tack to the UK government which aims to limit the number of new arrivals after Brexit.
Sturgeon, who is also first minister, will close the SNP’s conference on Saturday with a plea to give Scotland more control over what her party argues is the key challenge facing the economy.
Scotland’s population, much of which is rural and dispersed unlike the rest of the UK, is ageing more rapidly than other parts of the country. Boosting immigration is essential to keep providing the workforce needed to drive economic growth, as well as to shore up public services such as in health.
Immigration, however, is the thorniest political issue in the Brexit negotiations, and limiting the number of foreigners who enter the UK was a key element on which Britain’s overall 2016 vote to leave the European Union rested.
A growing number of people in Northern Ireland support their province joining the Republic of Ireland because of concerns over the implications of Brexit, a survey published on Friday showed.
The BBC poll showed 42.1 percent in the British province would vote for Irish unification if there was a referendum, while 45 percent would vote to remain a part of the United Kingdom.
Some 12.7 percent said they were undecided or would not vote.