Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson: leaving on 29 March is the only way to preserve the UK’s self-respect

This article is a edited version of Boris Johnson’s speech in parliament today:

I myself had sincerely hoped that the government would be able to make the wholly modest changes that this House urged them to make and that there would be no risk that this country would find itself trapped in the backstop, and no risk that we would lose our democratic right to make laws for this country or pass them to a foreign entity for all time – as we are now in danger of doing.

But whatever the government tried to do it has not I’m afraid succeeded. No, I congratulate the prime minister and the Attorney General on their efforts. The result is that like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden they have sowed an apron of fig leaves that does nothing to conceal the embarrassment and indignity of the UK. And as the Attorney General has confirmed in his admirably honest advice, this backstop doesn’t just divide our country in fundamental ways. It ties our hands for the future and it sets us on a path to a subordinate relationship with the EU, which is still a despite what we were told yesterday, clearly based on the Customs Union and on a large parts of the Single Market.

I have certainly visited the places in Northern Ireland, and indeed in the times of the troubles and I can tell you that nobody wants those types of border controls to come back. Least of all the government of Dublin or of London or indeed in Brussels. By the way nobody thinks it is necessary under any circumstances for hard border controls to return in Northern Ireland. But what I think people will want is for this country to have the unilateral right of exit from the backstop.

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