Premier contenders raise stakes

LONDON — The two contenders to become Britain’s next prime minister raised the Brexit stakes by saying they will discard a contentious part of the European Union divorce deal agreed to by outgoing leader Theresa May.

The pound fell to a 27month low of $1.2408 Tuesday after Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt appeared to make it more likely that Britain will leave the EU without an agreement on the terms to smooth the way.

Britain’s Parliament has repeatedly rejected May’s deal with the bloc, in large part because of a measure designed to keep goods and people flowing freely across the border between the United Kingdom’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.

Brexit supporters think the socalled backstop keeps Britain too closely bound to EU trade rules. Some have argued for an exit clause or time limit to ensure that Britain isn’t trapped in the backstop indefinitely.

But during a leadership debate Monday, frontrunner Boris Johnson rejected “time limits or unilateral escape hatches or all these elaborate devices” and said “the problem is very fundamental.”

His rival, Jeremy Hunt, agreed that “the backstop, as it is, is dead.”

Britain is due to leave the EU on Oct. 31, and the candidates’ stance appeared to heighten the chance of a disruptive “nodeal” Brexit, because EU leaders insist there can be no withdrawal agreement without the backstop.

An invisible border is crucial to the regional economy and also underpins the peace process that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland.