LONDON: Prime Minister Boris Johnson blamed his opposition Labour rival for Britain’s failure to leave the European Union by Thursday’s deadline and promised to deliver Brexit by January — if he wins the upcoming pre-Christmas election.
Johnson is riding high in opinion polls going into the December 12 vote that will be Britain’s third in four years.
But he risks a backlash over his unkept “do or die” promise to take Britain out by October 31 — and again set himself up for another potential fall by promising to meet the next deadline.
The Conservative leader, who wants no more delays to the process, cast himself as a victim of parliamentary opposition parties that refused to follow the wishes of UK voters who chose to leave Europe in the knife-edge 2016 referendum.
“After three-and-a-half years, it was perfectly obvious to me that this parliament is just not going to vote Brexit through,” Johnson said during a campaign stop at a hospital.
“If you vote for us and we get our program through, which we will — as a I say, it’s oven-ready, it’s there to go — we can be out, at the absolute latest, by January next year.”
Pro-EU campaigners and business executives breathed a sigh of relief that Britain had been given a stay of execution to avoid a Halloween Brexit nightmare that could have seen it crash out of the bloc after 46 years without a plan.
Johnson confounded expectations by securing a revised EU divorce deal that Brussels had long refused to touch.
But he was forced to follow through on parliamentary orders and ask EU leaders for more time after Labour mustered enough cross-party support to extend parliamentary debates and delay a final vote.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would throw out Johnson’s plan and get Brexit “sorted” within the first six months of grabbing power by negotiating more EU-friendly separation terms.
He would then put it up for a vote against the option of simply staying the 27-nation bloc.
“We’ll let the people decide whether to leave with a sensible deal or remain. It really isn’t that complicated,” Corbyn told a party rally at a London art center.
“And we, the Labour government, will carry out whatever the people decide.”
But the veteran socialist avoided answering a direct question on which way he himself would vote.
“It’s not about me, it’s not any individual on this platform, it’s not a presidential election,” Corbyn said.
Corbyn has been accused of seeking to shift the debate onto more domestic subjects such as health and social care to avoid scrutiny of his own vague position on Europe.
He has said in the past that he voted to leave in 2016. But he has also spent much of his political career attacking Brussels as a cauldron of crony capitalism.
Corbyn promised to push the most “radical” agenda Britain has ever seen. He pledged to put “wealth and power in the hands of the many” and eliminate everything from poverty to university tuition fees.
“Together we can pull down the corrupt system to build a genuine government that cares for all,” he said.
Business leaders warn that Labour’s plan to reimpose state ownership over railways and other major industries would cost at least £196 billion ($253 billion, 228 billion euros).
But a National Institute of Economic and Social Research study suggested Wednesday that Johnson’s Brexit deal could leave Britain £70 billion worse off in 10 years.
Almost 60 members of the 650-seat lower House of Commons have announced they will not stand in the coming election.
The number has raised eyebrows because — while dozens usually leave before general election — many came from the more moderate and wing of Johnson’s party.
Senior cabinet minister Nicky Morgan was one of several to at least partly link her decision to the “abuse” lawmakers receive from the public.
Divisions over Brexit have seen sometimes toxic rhetoric on all sides. Death threats against lawmakers and attacks on social media have risen in recent years.
Morgan described the “clear impact on my family and the other sacrifices involved in, and the abuse for, doing the job of a modern MP.”
Long-standing Conservative MP Caroline Spelman warned of a “wild west of Internet abuse” as she stepped down.
Johnson pledges January Brexit after missing ‘do or die’ deadline
Johnson pledges January Brexit after missing ‘do or die’ deadline
- “After three-and-a-half years, it was perfectly obvious to me that this parliament is just not going to vote Brexit through,” Johnson said during a campaign stop at a hospital
Philippines eyes closer cooperation on advanced defense tech with UAE
- Philippine-UAE defense agreement is Manila’s first with a Gulf country
- Philippines says new deal will also help modernize the Philippine military
MANILA: The Philippines is seeking stronger cooperation with the UAE on advanced defense technologies under their new defense pact — its first such deal with a Gulf country — the Department of National Defense said on Friday.
The Memorandum of Understanding on Defense Cooperation was signed during President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s visit to Abu Dhabi earlier this week, which also saw the Philippines and the UAE signing a comprehensive economic partnership agreement, marking Manila’s first free trade pact with a Middle Eastern nation.
The Philippines-UAE defense agreement “seeks to deepen cooperation on advanced defense technologies and strengthen the security relations” between the two countries, DND spokesperson Assistant Secretary Arsenio Andolong said in a statement.
The MoU “will serve as a platform for collaboration on unmanned aerial systems, electronic warfare, and naval systems, in line with the ongoing capability development and modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines,” he added.
It is also expected to further military relations through education and training, intelligence and security sharing, and cooperation in the fields of anti-terrorism, maritime security, and peacekeeping operations.
The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has described security and defense as “very promising fields” in Philippine-UAE ties, pointing to Abu Dhabi being the location of Manila’s first defense attache office in the Middle East.
The UAE is the latest in a growing list of countries with defense and security deals with the Philippines, which also signed a new defense pact with Japan this week.
“I would argue that this is more significant than it looks on first read, precisely because it’s the Philippines’ first formal defense cooperation agreement with a Gulf state. It signals diversification,” Rikard Jalkebro, associate professor at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi, told Arab News.
“Manila is widening its security partnerships beyond its traditional circles at a time when strategic pressure is rising in the South China Sea, and the global security environment is (volatile) across regions.”
Though the MoU is not an alliance and does not create mutual defense obligations, it provides a “framework for the practical stuff that matters,” including access, training pathways, procurement discussions and structured channels” for security cooperation, he added.
“For the UAE, the timing also makes sense, seeing that Abu Dhabi is no longer only a defense buyer; it’s increasingly a producer and exporter, particularly in areas like UAS (unmanned aerial systems) and enabling technologies. That opens a new lane for Manila to explore capability-building, technology transfer, and industry-to-industry links,” Jalkebro said.
The defense deal also matters geopolitically, as events in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific region have ripple effects on global stability and commerce.
“So, a Philippines–UAE defense framework can be read as a pragmatic hedge, strengthening resilience and options without formally taking sides,” Jalkebro said.
