Boris Johnson: Don’t bank on Brexit breakthrough in New York
Prime Minister Boris Johnson played down hopes of a breakthrough in Brexit negotiations as he jetted off to New York this morning.
Johnson, who is set to speak to the German and Irish leaders when in the US, cautioned reporters that the trip may not be “the moment.”
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“I don’t wish to elevate excessively the belief that there will be a New York breakthrough,” the Prime Minister said.
Johnson is also set to meet European Council President Donald Tusk and a host of other European leaders in the city.
The new Prime Minister has promised to take Britain out of the European Union by the end of October “do or die”. However many issues are yet to be resolved.
Johnson has said that the UK could leave without a deal in place which would allow Britain to remain a partner of EU countries. That would mean trading on World Trade Organisation terms, including high tariffs for some goods.
This morning he claimed that a “great deal” of progress has been made since he started the job in July. But there are “clearly still gaps and still difficulties”, he added.
Johnson is keen to do away with the so-called Irish backstop, negotiated by his predecessor Theresa May, which prevents a hard border with Ireland.
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“The problem with … the current backstop is that it would prevent the UK from diverging over a huge range of industrial standards and others,” he said. “We may want to regulate differently but clearly there is also a strong incentive to keep goods moving fluidly and we think we can do both.”
The government is now looking forward to an EU summit on 17 and 18 October.