Boris Johnson Still Has a Bazooka at His Disposal
Getting a byzantine Brexit deal past Parliament won’t be easy. Johnson will abort and seek an election if it’s bogged down or “amended to death.”
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Photographer: WPA Pool/Getty Images EuropeIt turned out last week that the key to getting a new Brexit agreement in Brussels wasn’t so complicated: Boris Johnson simply gave in on a couple of major negotiating red lines and then declared victory. He’ll have a much harder time repeating the trick in Parliament this week.
The price of Johnson’s concessions to the European Union became clear on Saturday. Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, whose interests were sold out by the British prime minister so he could strike the deal, gave their backing to a parliamentary amendment that vastly complicates Johnson’s task. The Letwin amendment, named after the former Conservative lawmaker who drafted it, says the new Brexit deal isn’t done until Parliament passes the legislation to implement it.