{"id":224501,"date":"2019-07-25T21:43:36","date_gmt":"2019-07-26T01:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=224501"},"modified":"2019-07-25T21:43:36","modified_gmt":"2019-07-26T01:43:36","slug":"showdown-looms-as-new-british-pm-wants-to-redo-brexit-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/07\/25\/showdown-looms-as-new-british-pm-wants-to-redo-brexit-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Showdown looms as new British PM wants to redo Brexit deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Johnson pledged to deliver Brexit and a \u201cbroader and bolder future,\u201d as he addressed a rowdy session of Parliament. (Pixabay Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LONDON \u2014 On his first full day in office, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged the European Union on Thursday to rethink its refusal to renegotiate the Brexit deal, setting himself on a twin-track collision course \u2014 with the bloc and his own lawmakers \u2014 over his vow to leave the EU by Oct. 31.<\/p>\n

Johnson pledged to deliver Brexit and a \u201cbroader and bolder future,\u201d as he addressed a rowdy session of Parliament.<\/p>\n

He was heckled loudly by an opposition determined to thwart him, with Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn dismissing Johnson’s \u201carm-waving bluster.\u201d The EU’s Brexit chief called Johnson’s speech \u201ccombative\u201d and his demands unacceptable.<\/p>\n

Johnson, who took office on Wednesday after winning a Conservative Party leadership contest, has less than 100 days to make good on his promise to deliver Brexit by Oct. 31. And Thursday’s session of Parliament was the last before a six-week summer break.<\/p>\n

Rejecting the Brexit withdrawal agreement negotiated by his predecessor Theresa May, Johnson insisted that while he wanted a deal, it could only happen if the EU budged, especially on an insurance policy for the Irish border that has been rejected by U.K. lawmakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that the EU will be equally ready and that they will rethink their current refusal to make any changes to the Withdrawal Agreement,\u201d he told Parliament during the 2 1\/2-hour session. \u201cIf they do not, we will, of course, have to leave \u2014 the U.K. \u2014 without an agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson later spoke by phone to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who once again repeated the bloc’s insistence that it will not renegotiate the agreement on departure terms that it struck with May.<\/p>\n

Juncker told Johnson that \u201cthe withdrawal agreement is the best and only agreement possible\u201d but the EU was ready \u201cto analyze any ideas put forward by the United Kingdom, providing they are compatible with the withdrawal agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exchange was disclosed by an EU official who asked not to be identified because of the confidentiality of the phone call.<\/p>\n

Chief EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said Johnson’s \u201crather combative\u201d speech was part of the British leader’s attempt \u201cto heap pressure on the unity\u201d of the bloc.<\/p>\n

In a message to the 27 remaining member states, he said the EU must \u201cbe ready for all scenarios.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without a divorce deal, Britain faces a chaotic Brexit that economists warn would disrupt trade by imposing tariffs and customs checks between Britain and the bloc. They say that could send the value of the pound plummeting and plunge the U.K. into recession.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless Johnson has vowed to complete Brexit and silence \u201cthe doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters\u201d who believe it can’t be done.<\/p>\n

But details remain scarce about how Johnson’s government would alleviate the economic shock if Britain crashed out of the EU’s huge free-trading bloc, ripping up decades of agreements regulating everything from aviation to drugs to telecommunications.<\/p>\n

He said he was ready to talk to EU leaders \u201cwhenever they are ready to do so,\u201d and also promised to \u201cturbo-charge\u201d planning for a no-deal exit, with millions more allocated to a public information campaign for citizens and businesses.<\/p>\n

He also repeated his threat to withhold the exit payment of 39 billion pounds ($49 billion) that May agreed to if there is no deal.<\/p>\n

Since taking office Wednesday, Johnson has replaced many of May’s ministers with his own hand-picked Cabinet of loyal Brexiteers, and it met for the first time on Thursday. Many of them worked with Johnson in the 2016 referendum campaign to leave the EU, as did much of Johnson’s new backroom staff.<\/p>\n

Despite the new lineup, Johnson faces the same problems that bedeviled May: heading a government without a parliamentary majority and with most lawmakers opposed to leaving the EU without a divorce deal.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers who oppose a no-deal Brexit \u2014 including some of the Conservative ministers in May’s government who were swept away by Johnson \u2014 are vowing to put up a fight when Parliament returns from its break in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis House will stop the prime minister,\u201d said Scottish National Party lawmaker Ian Blackford, who branded a no-deal Brexit \u201ceconomic madness.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s almost certain that opposition lawmakers will try to topple Johnson’s government in a vote of no-confidence in September. There also is rising speculation that Johnson could call an early fall election in hopes of gaining a majority in Parliament for his plans.<\/p>\n

The country’s next scheduled election is not until 2022, and Johnson says his priority is Brexit, not an early poll \u2014 but he hasn’t ruled one out.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Johnson must prove he can deliver on his optimistic pronouncements.<\/p>\n

In a packed and testy session of Parliament on the hottest day of the year, dozens of lawmakers grilled him on details: How would he uphold the government’s promise to keep the border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland free of customs checks? How would he enforce his promise that all 3 million EU citizens living in Britain can stay?<\/p>\n

He batted them all away, offering instead the blustering optimism that have made him one of Britain’s most divisive politicians.<\/p>\n

As he boomed above the cheers and jeers, Johnson’s delivery had an echo of his idol, Winston Churchill. But instead of the wartime leader’s vow to give \u201cblood, toil, tears and sweat,\u201d Johnson promised \u201cpositive thinking and a can-do attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is every chance that in 2050 … we will be able to look back on this extraordinary period as the start of a new golden age for our United Kingdom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Corbyn, leader of the main opposition Labour Party, said the country was worried that \u201cthe new prime minister overestimates himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe says he has pluck, nerve and ambition,\u201d Corbyn said. \u201cOur country does not need arm-waving bluster but competence, seriousness and, after a decade of division policies for the few, to focus on the interests of the many.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Raf Casert in Brussels contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON \u2014 On his first full day in office, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged the European Union on Thursday …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":149663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-jill-lawless","mauthors-danica-kirka","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224505,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224501\/revisions\/224505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}