Britain’s foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has claimed that European Union leaders now accept that the current Northern Ireland backstop cannot get through the British parliament. He said that parliament had made clear its intentions to take a no-deal Brexit off the table no matter what the new prime minister says or does. The backstop is a provision in the existing EU-UK withdrawal agreement to avoid a hard Border in Ireland after Brexit. They are Mr Johnson, Mr Hunt, Mr Gove, Mr Raab, home secretary Sajid Javid, health secretary Matt Hancock, international development secretary Rory Stewart, former chief whip Mark Harper, former Commons leader Andrea Leadsom, and former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey. “There’s this idea from some people that to deliver Brexit we should suspend our parliamentary democracy – that we should prorogue parliament.

Source: The Irish Times June 10, 2019 19:07 UTC