Showing posts with label Boris Johnson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boris Johnson. Show all posts

Wednesday 23 October 2019

UK and EU and their Brexit deals

The Brexit saga looks a big complicated soap.

More than once it looked like the United Kingdom and European Union agreed on a new Brexit deal, and the British Prime Ministers Theresa May and afterwards Boris Johnson announcing that they had "a great new deal".

At one point Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the EU Commission, also described the deal as a "fair and balanced agreement" that is "testament to our commitment to find solutions."

However, the many proposals and worked out deals did not get the approval of the UK Parliament to pass into law.

Johnson's predecessor Theresa May, was voted down three times by the House of Commons, forcing the UK to seek an extension to the original Brexit deadline of March 31 this year. May's deal was criticized heavily on all sides of the political spectrum, with some arguing it left the UK too closely aligned with the EU, and others saying that it failed to protect workers' rights and would damage the economy.

This time the prime minister Boris Johnson said he would abandon his Brexit bill and call for a general election if MPs voted down the government’s three-day timetable. Johnson told parliament if the programme was rejected and the EU confirmed a delay to the 31 October exit, he would instead push for a general election.

Boris Johnson paused his attempt to get his deal through parliament after MPs refused to allow him to fast-track it. Despite MPs having decided to pass the legislation that would implement the deal to the next parliamentary stage, Johnson took it off the agenda because they refused to agree to accede to his demand for a three-day timetable.

For the so maniest time it looks like the English receive another delay from the European Union. The European council’s president, Donald Tusk, said he would recommend the extension be signed off and it was suggested that 31 January 2020 would be set as the new deadline, though it would be superseded if there was an earlier ratification of Brexit by MPs.