The EconomistOctober 26th 2019 511A
nother week, another missed Brexit
deadline. Yet Boris Johnson came tan-
talisingly close. On October 17th the prime
minister confounded his critics by wring-
ing a new withdrawal agreement out of his
fellow euleaders in Brussels. Two days lat-
er, in a rare Saturday sitting of the Com-
mons, he failed to win parliamentary en-
dorsement for the deal only because mps,
who were nervous that he might still take
Britain out of the euwith no deal at all on
October 31st, voted instead to put off formal
approval until the necessary legislation
had been passed.
Intent on leaving at the end of the
month, Mr Johnson published the 115-page
bill to give effect to the deal on October 21st,
with a timetable motion suggesting that
Parliament should pass it through all its
stages in only a week. The next day he won
approval for the bill at second reading. But
his ludicrously short timetable was reject-
ed by mps (previous eutreaties have taken
weeks or even months to be ratified). Al-
though many mps made clear that they had
voted for the second reading only so as to
propose substantial amendments to the
bill, Mr Johnson claimed they had “passed”
the deal and accused the Labour opposition
leader, Jeremy Corbyn, of just trying to de-
lay Brexit. Rather than accept a pause, he
petulantly threatened to pull the bill and
demand an early election instead.
Yet delay is coming. As required by the
Benn act passed by Parliament last month,
Mr Johnson had already written to the euto
ask for a three-month extension of the
Brexit deadline, from October 31st to Janu-
ary 31st. He accompanied this letter with a
second in which he suggested to other eu
leaders that any extension would be da-
maging. Ignoring this, Brussels was pre-
paring this week to accept the prime minis-
ter’s formal request for more time, though
it may suggest a shorter period than three
months. Mr Johnson is thus certain to
break his many loud promises to get Brexit
done on October 31st, do or die.
Amid the shenanigans there was only
limited debate about the content of Mr
Johnson’s new deal. What drew most atten-
tion was its replacement for the backstop
to avert a hard border in Ireland in all cir-
cumstances by keeping the entire UnitedKingdom in a customs union with the eu.
The new deal ditches this in favour of a
Northern Ireland-only “frontstop” which,
in effect, will keep the province alone in a
customs union, and also aligned with most
eurules. Because mainland Britain may di-
verge, this will require customs as well as
regulatory checks in the Irish Sea. This
week Mr Johnson insisted, implausibly,
that these checks would only be light. He
also claimed, incorrectly, that the entire
scheme would evaporate as soon as Britain
signed a free-trade deal with the eu.
Not surprisingly, the new Brexit deal
has incensed the prime minister’s erst-
while allies, the Northern Irish Democratic
Unionist Party (dup). The party noted that
Mr Johnson had assured them that no Brit-
ish government would ever accept border
controls in the Irish Sea. Nor was it molli-
fied by his attempt to give them some say
over the deal. Far from giving the dupa
veto, as Mr Johnson had proposed, the
agreement requires an absolute majority of
the Northern Ireland assembly to opt out. It
can do this only every four years and would
have to agree to some replacement.
The new withdrawal agreement also
drops Mrs May’s plans to remain aligned
with Brussels on many single-market regu-
lations as well as customs. Instead, Mr
Johnson’s vaguer promises to maintain a
level playing-field for most such rules have
been put into the non-binding political
declaration that accompanies the with-
drawal agreement. As Charles Grant of the
Centre for European Reform, a think-tank,The Brexit deal
Coming closer
Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal moves a step nearer to approval—but he will miss his
self-imposed target date of October 31st
Britain
52 Migrant deaths
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