Hunt and Johnson: the Northern Ireland backstop is dead and can't be in any EU deal

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Hunt and Johnson: the backstop is dead and can't be in any EU deal

Tory leadership rivals say they would prefer no-deal Brexit to proposed Irish border solution

Rowena Mason and Jessica Elgot
Mon 15 Jul 2019 21.21 BST Last modified on Mon 15 Jul 2019 21.48 BST

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt have declared the Northern Ireland backstop “dead” and promised to throw it out of any deal they negotiate with the EU, in comments that significantly harden their Brexit positions.

The Tory leadership rivals both ruled out trying to tweak the backstop, which critics said could trap the UK indefinitely in a customs union with the EU.

They said it would not feature in any deal with the EU, saying it was no good to have a time limit on it or a way of the UK exiting it unilaterally – even though Eurosceptics had previously indicated they could vote for such compromises.

Pressed in a Sun and Talk Radio debate on whether he would seek a time limit to the backstop, Johnson said: “The answer is no. The problem is really fundamental. It needs to come out.”

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/15/hunt-and-johnson-the-backstop-is-dead-and-cant-be-in-any-eu-deal

[Soph0571]

1. They are ridiculous

They would see the troubles return for their fucking vanity project. As a child of the troubles this makes me so cross.
So we get a no deal Brexit that will destroy the economy for the next 20 years, and we get bandits on the border, and we get the continuity and the real IRA feeling righteous about starting the troubles again.

Winning all the way round

Complete and utter fuckers

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. So that's pretty much "it'll be No Deal, after a couple of months of pretending ...

... that we're about to pull a rabbit out of a hat and find some way of having our cake and eating it".

[Gumboot]

3. 'Clueless' doesn't even begin to describe these two.

They've had three years to sort this sh*t out, and they've still done absolutely nothing.

Honestly, the unqualified garbage that those fancy private schools churn out...

[Nitram]

4. The UK right treat Ireland like Trump reads Puerto Rico.