• World
  • Oct 18

EU leaders agree on new Brexit deal

European Union leaders unanimously backed a new Brexit deal with Britain on October 17, leaving Prime Minister Boris Johnson facing a battle to secure the UK parliament’s backing for the agreement if he is to take Britain out of Europe on October 31.

Speaking after the EU’s 27 other leaders had endorsed the deal without Johnson in the room, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker declared himself pleased that an agreement had been reached but unhappy to see Britain go.

What is the new deal?

British and EU negotiators reached the agreement after successive days of late-night talks and nearly three years of heated discussions that have strained EU-UK ties at a time the bloc is facing a wave of euroscepticism, struggling to restart economic growth and take a stand against resurgent global powers China and Russia.

Negotiators worked frantically this week to agree a compromise on the question of the border between EU member Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland, the most difficult part of Brexit.

The conundrum was how to prevent the frontier becoming a backdoor into the EU’s single market without erecting checkpoints that could undermine the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of conflict in the province.

The agreement reached will keep Northern Ireland in the UK customs area but EU tariffs will apply on goods crossing from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland if they are headed to Ireland and into the bloc’s single market.

The agreement scraps the “backstop”, a mechanism envisaged earlier that was designed to prevent a hard border being introduced on the island of Ireland, and would have bound at least parts of Britain to some EU rules. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said one positive with the Johnson deal was that it was clear Britain would become what the EU calls a “third country”, making it essential for the EU to work rapidly on reaching a free trade agreement with it.

“There is an essential difference compared with when Theresa May was prime minister. Then it was not clear how the future relations would look, whether membership of the customs union or not. Now it is quite clear,” Merkel said.

Crucial voting on October 19

Johnson said he was confident that parliament, which will sit for an extraordinary session on October 19 to vote on the Brexit agreement, would approve the deal. “When my colleagues in parliament study this agreement they will want to vote for it and then in succeeding days,” he told reporters.

But the arithmetic in the vote is not simple. The Northern Irish party that Johnson needs to help ratify any agreement, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), has refused to support it, saying it is not in Northern Ireland’s interests. 

The head of the main opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said he was unhappy with the agreement and would vote against it. Labour has said it wants any deal to be subject to a public vote, but as yet has not indicated whether it will back any move for a second referendum.

Johnson does not have a majority in the 650-seat parliament, and in practice needs at least 318 votes to get a deal ratified. The DUP have 10 votes. 

Parliament defeated a previous deal struck by Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, three times. 

What will happen if the deal is defeated?

The uncertainty over parliament’s approval means that, two weeks before Britain is due to leave the world’s largest trading bloc, the possible outcomes still range from an orderly departure to a chaotic exit or even another referendum that could reverse the entire endeavour.

If the deal is defeated, the prime minister is legally obliged to ask EU leaders to postpone Brexit for a third time — breaking his vow to lead Britain out on October 31.

Juncker warned such a rejection would create an “extremely complicated situation”, while Tusk said that if it happened he would consult member states on how to respond.

What is the stand of PM Johnson?

Johnson appears intent on presenting parliament with a stark choice - the deal he has struck or no deal - in the hope of securing just enough votes, including perhaps from the opposition benches, to secure a knife-edge approval. 

“The PM’s position is that it’s new deal or no deal but no delay,” said a senior British government official. If the deal is approved, economists said Britain was likely headed for a “fairly hard” Brexit, certainly a harder one than would have been the case under May’s deal.

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