LONDON — Britain is giving up its efforts to strike a deal with the uncompromising European Union and will not return to the table. It will seek to leave the European Union, even without a deal. So went the drumbeat of recrimination from officials, mostly anonymous, inside 10 Downing Street, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s already dim hopes for a negotiated exit with Brussels appeared to flicker out on Tuesday. As the prime minister girds for a likely election, his political survival depends in part on looking like he is being dragged, kicking and screaming, into this reversal. Everything Mr. Johnson says and does is calculated to advance the narrative that he has been forced — by an irresponsible Parliament, overreaching courts and truculent Europeans — into breaking his promise.

Source: New York Times October 08, 2019 12:11 UTC