Boris Johnson news: Johnson repeatedly refuses to rule out suspending parliament to achieve no-deal Brexit
All the updates from the G7 summit in Biarritz, as it happened
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Boris Johnson today said he was prepared to take final Brexit talks down to the last minute, but would then leave without a deal on 31 October, if no deal had been brokered.
This leaves just 68 days for the prime minister to secure a new deal, with neither side currently prepared to compromise on key issues.
The scenario leaves the UK facing a messy exit from the bloc, with food shortages and considerable border disruption expected, which could leave long-lasting economic scars on the country.
“The EU does tend to come to an agreement right at the end,” he said. “Clearly for us the walking away, as it were, would come on 31 October when we would take steps to come out … we would have by then made absolutely colossal extensive and fantastic preparations.”
Mr Johnson said he believed that other EU states, as well as the British public, now wanted to put Brexit behind them and move on.
“I think that it’s the job of everybody in parliament to get this thing done,” he said. “I think it’s what the people want, I also think by the way it’s what our friends and partners on the other side of the Channel want.
“They want this thing done, they want it over.
“You talk to our friends as I have done in the last few weeks and they are very enthusiastic about getting on with the future. They regard Brexit now as an encumbrance, an old argument. They want to talk about the new partnership that we’re going to build.”
The prime minister repeatedly refused to rule out suspending parliament in order to push through a no-deal Brexit.
Iran has an opportunity to come back into compliance with the nuclear deal and resume dialogue about its nuclear activities, Boris Johnson said on Monday.
US President Donald Trump said earlier he would meet Iran's president under the right circumstances to end a confrontation over a 2015 nuclear deal. Trump has pulled the United States out of the pact although European powers still support it.
“Iran should never under circumstances be allowed to get a nuclear weapon,” Mr Johnson said at a news conference as the G7 conference in Biarritz drew to a close.
“There is clearly an opportunity now for Iran to come back into compliance with the nuclear deal... and to resume dialogue, as well as to cease its disruptive behaviour in the region.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was prepared to take Brexit talks with the European Union down to the very last minute before the 31 October exit deadline and if necessary to take a decision to leave without a deal on that day.
When asked by Reuters if he was prepared to take talks with the EU right up to 31 October, Mr Johnson said: “Well I do think that the EU does tend to come to an agreement right at the end.”
“Clearly for us, the walking away as it were, would come on October 31 when we would take steps to come out on the terms for which we will have by then made absolutely colossal and extensive and fantastic preparations.”
Here are Boris Johnson's remarks on the environment from his address at the G7 summit in Biarritz:
“We can’t just sit back as animals and plants are wiped off the face of the planet. The world’s animal populations have declined by about 60 per cent in the last 50 years A million species are now facing extinction, and we’ve seen in the Amazon rainforest a tragic increase in fires which are made more likely by deforestation, and that’s why today I’ve announced £10m of new funding to protect and restore the rainforest in Brazil.
“With a million birds and one hundred thousand mammals losing their lives from getting eaten or tangled in ocean plastic. We’ve got to do much more to protect the oceans and today we’ve announced £7m for the blue belt programme to extend our work to protect vital marine ecosystems in conservation areas in Britain’s coastal overseas territory, don’t forget Britain has the fifth biggest marine estate in the world.
“If we don’t act now, our children and our grand children will never know a world with the Great Barrier Reef, or the Sumatran tiger or the black rhino.
“And so next year at the biodiversity COP – the summit in China – the so-called Aichi targets, should in our view be replaced with more ambitious targets to help us get back the biodiversity that we are losing and that this planet has lost.
"And I am very pleased the G7 Summit today in Biarritz has accepted those UK ideas and targets for biodiversity – to stop the reduction of habitats and species.”
Boris Johnson has repeatedly refused to rule out suspending parliament to push through a no-deal Brexit, writes The Independent's political editor Andrew Woodcock.
And the prime minister sent a signal to Commons Speaker John Bercow not to stand in the way of his efforts to ensure Britain leaves the EU with or without a deal on 31 October, insisting that all parliamentarians had a duty to respect the will of the people.
Read the full article here:
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