Boris Johnson will ask the European Union to postpone Brexit if on October 19, after the European summit, there is no agreement about the British leaving the Union. That is stated in documents that the government has submitted to the Scottish court.
Nobody knows how this can be reconciled with the promise of the British Prime Minister, repeatedly made, to leave the European Union on 31 October.
Just as Theresa May repeated the slogan “Brexit means Brexit” at the time, Johnson has said a hundred times that Brexit will be completed before Halloween. In recent weeks, anonymous sources around Johnson have suggested that he will ignore the postponement law drafted by parliament to achieve that goal. There was also talk that Johnson would have the postponement letter followed by a letter asking EU leaders to ignore the earlier letter.
Opposite the BBC, government sources argue that it is still possible to implement the law and still leave the EU.
“People have to wait a while how these two things can be united.”
According to lawyer Aidan O’Neill of the EU-minded Scots who want to force Johnson to continue the negotiations on Brexit, this statement is “a proof of the impact, the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the law by the government”. There are now two cases at the Scottish court in which plaintiffs want to legally force Johnson to continue the Brexit negotiations.
A deal is still far away. In Brussels, there was a negative reaction in recent days to the proposal made by the British on Wednesday. The President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, called it “unconvincing,” and Guy Verhofstadt, President of the Brexit Steering Group within the European Parliament, is not overflowing with enthusiasm. Next week, Johnson and his minister of Brexit will again conduct a European tour, seeking support for the complex proposal.
The Irish Prime Minister further accentuated matters by saying that since the appointment of Johnson as Prime Minister, the British population actually wants to stay in the European Union.