Brexit Update: PM Boris to ensure no delay in deal with 'Withdrawal Agreement Bill'

On Tuesday, the Brexit debate resumed after Thursday’s election with the Boris Johnson government announcing that the Withdrawal Agreement Bill to be placed before parliament on Friday will block any delay beyond December 2020.

The UK is due to symbolically leave the European Union on January 31, but will move into a ‘transition’ phase, when nothing will change in practice, with the UK remaining in the EU single market and the customs union until December 31, 2020.

London and Brussels are expected to finalise a trade agreement during the transition period for arrangements in place from January 1, 2021. But critics and some interlocutors in both capitals and other EU capitals doubt the agreement can be reached in such a sh

Shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer said the move was “reckless and irresponsible,” alleging that Johnson is “prepared to put people’s jobs at risk”, while Liberal Democrats interim leader Ed Davey added: “The only way Johnson can meet the December 2020 timetable is by giving up all his previous promises to Leave voters and agreeing to all the demands of the EU.”

As new MPs took oath swearing allegiance to the British crown in the House of Commons, Johnson held his new government’s first cabinet meeting, using a catchphrase used by former US President Ronald Reagan in 1984: “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet”.

An upbeat Johnson told the cabinet: “The voters of this country have changed this government and our party for the better, and we must repay their trust now by working flat out to change our country for the better”.

ort time.

The transition period can be extended by mutual agreement for up to two years, but keen to deliver on the promise to ‘get Brexit done’ without delay, the Johnson government is ruling out the extension, which also raises the prospect of leaving the EU without a trade deal.

“It was a quite extraordinary, it was a seismic election, but we need to repay their trust and work 24 hours a day, work flat out, to deliver. Of course, the first 100 days were very busy - 140 days, or whatever it was; you may remember it was a very frenetic time – but you ain’t seen nothing yet, folks”.

“We are going to have to work even harder, because people have a high level of expectation, and we must deliver for them”.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was due to meet his parliamentary party as bookmakers reported that Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy were the two favourites to succeed him as party leader.

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