Boris Johnson told Cabinet he’ll win a new Brexit deal as ‘where there’s a Wirral there’s a way’ after breakthrough meeting with Leo Varadkar in Merseyside
BORIS Johnson told the Cabinet he will win a new Brexit deal as “where there’s a Wirral, there’s a way” — but fears grew it will not be in time for the October 31 exit date.
At the start of a pivotal week for Brexit, the PM updated his top table on the state of the 11th-hour negotiations in Brussels during a 40-minute call.
His Wirral gag was a reference to the Merseyside location for his breakthrough meeting last week with Irish PM Leo Varadkar, in which the two men came together to force through a new plan.
But with 48 hours to go before a deadline for Thursday’s crunch EU summit agenda to be set, hopes were fading for an agreement to be struck in time.
British officials also warned that hammering out the detail of the new customs partnership plan for Northern Ireland could take “three months of very hard work”.
And Tory rebel Dominic Grieve insisted: “I just don’t see how a deal of this complexity is going to be arrived at, we can possibly get it all finalised by October 31, which means there’s going to have to be an extension whatever happens”.
Updating EU ambassadors, Mr Barnier warned the plan for Northern Ireland to be in a dual EU-UK customs area would leave the Single Market exposed to fraud.
EU officials said technical talks between the two teams would continue.
CALL FOR CALM
But Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg called for calm, insisting that “everybody is compromising to some degree”.
He said: “I don’t believe the Prime Minister would do anything that would undermine the integrity of the United Kingdom.
“I trust Boris Johnson to ensure the relationship we have with the European Union is not one of a vassal state.”
The Sun Says
IT will be another momentous week in British politics this week and yet it has all gone quiet on Brexit.
Suddenly the UK’s proposals are not being denounced out of hand in Brussels and our leaders are not routinely being insulted.
Could it be that EU officials are too busy with their UK counterparts, working out the details of a deal its negotiators and their collaborators in our parliament said could not be done?
Let us hope that silence is golden.
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Mr Varadkar has said that the Irish Parliament will be handed a vote on the agreement.
The reopening of the backstop could prompt some Member States to request that other parts of the Withdrawal Agreement text are revisited.
One EU diplomat said it was “really unlikely” that all these processes could be carried out and completed in the space of less than two weeks.
CORBYN REVOLT
By Tom Newton Dunn, Political Editor
JEREMY Corbyn is facing a shadow Cabinet revolt to back a second referendum on Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal.
Former staunch loyalist Rebecca Long-Bailey yesterday joined senior figures such as Emily Thornberry and Tom Watson to now insist on the move.
But the Labour leader is still insisting Labour must win a general election first before any fresh EU poll.
Shadow Business Secretary Ms Long-Bailey said: “The only option that we’ve got is to let the people decide.”
Ms Long-Bailey also claimed Mr Corbyn should “stand aside” if he loses the next general election.
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