UK’s Johnson unveils plan to end Brexit deadlock
Questions remain about its financing
LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson signaled an end to Britain’s Brexit deadlock Thursday, announcing a packed legislative program to take the U.K. out of the European Union on Jan. 31, overhaul everything from fishing to financial services and shore up the country’s cash-starved public services.
The commanding House of Commons majority Johnson’s Conservative Party won in last week’s general election all but guarantees he will be able to turn those promises into law, although there’s a question mark over how he will pay for it all.
Johnson opened the legislative floodgates after three years in which minority Conservative governments tried in vain to win legislators’ backing for their Brexit plans.
“This is the moment to repay the trust of those who sent us here by delivering on the people’s priorities,” Johnson told lawmakers. “They want to move politics on and move the country on.”
In less than 10 minutes, Queen Elizabeth II rattled through more than two dozen bills the government intends to pass in the coming year. The first will be the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill, needed to make Brexit a reality, which is set for its first significant parliamentary vote Friday. The bill commits Britain to leaving the EU on Jan. 31 and to concluding trade talks with the bloc by the end of 2020. Trade experts and EU officials say striking a free trade deal within 11 months will be a struggle, but Johnson insists he won’t agree to any more delays. That vow has set off alarms among businesses, which fear a “no-deal” Brexit at the start of 2021.
The government also plans to pass several other Brexit-related measures, including a new “points-based” immigration system that will be introduced after Brexit, when EU citizens will lose the automatic right to live and work in the U.K.
There are also plans to overhaul agriculture, fishing, trade and financial services in ways that will have a huge — though still largely unknown — effect on the British economy.
Johnson also promised “an ambitious program of domestic reform,” including a law committing the government to spend more on the overstretched National Health Service after a decadelong funding squeeze by previous Conservative governments.
There were tough-sounding announcements on law and order, including longer sentences for people convicted of terrorist offenses and other serious crimes.
The speech also promised to “prioritize investment in infrastructure” and Johnson hinted he might revive the idea of a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland, although engineers say spanning at least 12 miles of the deep and stormy Irish Sea would be difficult to impossible.
Several of the measures are likely to prove contentious. The government said it would hold a review of defense and foreign policy, and set up a commission that could lead to reform of institutions, including the Supreme Court, which angered the government by ruling in September that Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament was illegal.