British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to change the law to guarantee the Brexit transition phase is not extended, setting up a new cliff-edge for a no-deal split with the EU at the end of next year.
Johnson wants to deliver his election promise to ratify a new free-trade agreement with the bloc before the bridging period maintaining the “status quo” runs out on Dec. 31 next year.
EU leaders have warned it is highly unlikely that negotiators would be able to complete the kind of deal Johnson wants, which he has modeled on Canada’s agreement with the EU, in the 11 months between Brexit day Jan. 31 and the December deadline.
Photo: Reuters
The EU-Canada deal took seven years to finalize.
Johnson’s gambit is the latest sign of intent as he seeks to force through Britain’s divorce from the 28-nation bloc without further delay.
After winning a big majority in last week’s general election, the prime minister now has the power to do as he pleases on Brexit, without fear that Parliament will thwart his plans.
He plans to start by putting the divorce part of the Brexit deal to a vote, potentially as soon as Friday.
Once lawmakers have ratified that, the UK would leave the EU by Jan. 31.
The planned legislation would include legal text to prevent the government extending the transition period and delaying the day Britain stops being subject to EU laws, even if no new trade terms have been secured in time, an official said.
The law would potentially force the UK out of the EU without a new deal in place, threatening tariffs and disruption to trade.
As well as ministers being blocked from extending the transition period, the House of Commons would not get a vote on the issue, another official said.
When ministers were trying to get support for the Brexit deal before the election, they agreed to give lawmakers a vote on whether a longer transition period would be needed, but the government’s new majority means such compromises are not necessary, the official said.
Other concessions granted to try to smooth Johnson’s deal through Parliament in October, including protections for workers rights and a promise to give lawmakers a say over talks with the EU, would also be scrapped, the Times newspaper reported, without saying where it got the information.
Johnson’s plan to give priority to delivering Brexit was also reflected in appointments to his cabinet, announced on Monday night, which put the emphasis on continuity as he seeks to minimize disruption before the Jan. 31 deadline.
Nicky Morgan, who had announced she was standing down as a lawmaker before the election, has been handed a seat in the unelected House of Lords so she can stay on as British secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport.
In the only other senior appointment, Simon Hart became secretary of state for Wales in a move forced on Johnson after last month’s resignation of Alun Cairns from the post.
Other key positions in the cabinet, including the key posts of chancellor of the exchequer, home secretary and foreign secretary, are expected to remain unchanged.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate