British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a deadline until 15 October to reach an agreement with the European Union (EU) on Brexit, after which he noted, “you would have to accept (failure) and move the page.”
“There has to be an agreement with our European friends before the European Council on 15 October if it is going to come into force before the end of the year,” the head of the British government said in a statement that advanced the statements he will make on Monday.
Johnson’s words come before a new round of UK-EU talks begins in London next Tuesday to close a new free trade agreement that prevents an abrupt end to the current relationship from coming to an abrupt end to 31 December.
In recent hours the British Government has multiplied messages that it is not afraid that an agreement will finally be found, as British negotiator David Frost repeated on Sunday in an interview published by the Mail on Sunday.
For the prime minister, “there is no point in thinking about deadlines that go further (October 15). If we don’t agree by then, I don’t think there’s going to be a free trade agreement between us, and we should accept it and turn the page.”
Johnson alluded to points of disagreement, not to mention them, such as state subsidies or fishing, and assured that the UK will not give up “the basics of what it means to be an independent country” in pursuit of the success of the talks.
The Conservative Executive wants to have his hands free to decide whether to support with massive state investment key sectors for the economy such as technology – despite the non-interventionist tradition of the “tories” – and sees any arrangement with Brussels as a possible drag on those subsidies.
Nevertheless, the Prime Minister reiterated that a failure of the negotiations would be “a good outcome” for his country and that in that case it would mean that the EU became a trade partner “like Australia” of the United Kingdom, with protocols established by the World Trade Organization.
These statements are in addition to the information unveiled on Sunday by the Financial Times that the British Government plans to pass new legislation that would nullify parts of the EU’s exit agreement from the UNITED Kingdom, especially with respect to state subsidies and customs with Northern Ireland.
In the view of the influential newspaper, the passage of that new domestic market law – expected by Wednesday – could blow up negotiations e.g.
