LONDON _ Boris Johnson has made a clear signal he's ready to do a deal on Brexit, unveiling a compromise plan with enough concessions to keep the European Union at the table.
On Thursday, the U.K. prime minister will start the work of winning support in Parliament for a deal that until recently would have been rejected both by Brexit hard-liners in his own Conservative Party and by members of Parliament from Northern Ireland.
As he unveiled his proposal Wednesday, Johnson threatened to walk away from talks if the EU didn't agree with his compromise for the controversial backstop arrangement in Ireland _ what he described as "essentially a technical issue."
"Let us be in no doubt that the alternative is no deal," he said in his first keynote speech as prime minister at his Conservative Party's conference.
The U.K. is due to exit the EU on Oct. 31 and Johnson says he will never agree to delaying Brexit beyond that date, even if it means leaving without an deal _ risking disruption at ports, to business supply chains, and to the security of food, fuel and water supplies. More than three years after Britain voted to leave the bloc, Johnson says most people just want Brexit done.
Johnson's proposal to deal with the problem of the border between Northern Ireland, in the U.K., and the rest of Ireland, which is staying in the EU, is unlikely to be accepted by the EU as it stands. Although he insisted there would be no physical checks at the land border, it would require customs checks to take place somewhere.
But in other ways, the prime minister has moved a long way toward the EU. He proposes a regulatory border in the Irish Sea, effectively splitting Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. That's something Johnson's predecessor, Theresa May, said no prime minister could ever accept, and that the most ardent Brexiteeers in Parliament refused to back _ until now.
Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president, gave a cautious welcome to the move Wednesday, triggering the start of a two-week negotiation between the two sides to thrash out the finer points of a deal, ahead of an EU Council meeting Oct. 17-18. Whether the deal could get through the U.K. Parliament will be at the forefront of EU leaders' minds _ and the signs are starting to look good for Johnson.
Johnson will present the plan to his Cabinet on Thursday. Either he or Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay will then take questions on it in Parliament.
Opponents of a no-deal Brexit have so far been critical. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said the deal is unacceptable and would allow the U.K. to deregulate, reducing workers' rights. Liz Saville Roberts, Westminster leader of the Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru, said Johnson's plan is "a fantasy deal, full of contradictions" that would cause economic damage, including to the farming and manufacturing sectors in Wales.
But there was movement where it matters. Steve Baker, chairman of the pro-Brexit European Research Group of Conservative MPs, gave a broad welcome to the proposals, while Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, who have been propping the Conservatives up in government, also supported the proposal to replace the contentious "backstop" arrangement for the Irish border.
Johnson's plan is for politicians in the Northern Ireland Assembly to have a veto over the arrangements and will have to give consent every four years to allow them to continue. In one area that the Irish government is sure to pick up, it is unclear what would happen if that consent didn't come _ the whole point of the backstop is to give certainty that there'll be no border checks in any circumstances.
But Wednesday evening, there was no repeat of the language from Johnson's officials about this being a "final offer." Instead the prime minister described it as a "broad landing zone."
The compromise moves a step closer to a Northern Ireland-only backstop _ something the European Union has long pushed for, said Sam Lowe, senior research fellow at the Center for European Reform. "If the DUP and the Conservatives now accept the principle of some kind of border in the Irish Sea, it could be possible to get them to go the rest of the way," he said.
While the EU welcomed some of the concessions in the U.K. proposal, in particular the pledge to make Northern Ireland follow EU rule for goods, food and livestock, the bloc is clear that the proposal is very far from acceptable in other areas, most notably on dividing the island into two separate customs zones and giving the assembly in Belfast the power of veto.
But the European side is encouraged the U.K. government has signaled that it's prepared to talk further and will aim to get more concessions to avoid having to carry out any customs checks crossing the Irish border. If it can't, then it will make clear that Wednesday's cautious optimism was misplaced and it will move on to preparing for a Brexit delay beyond Oct. 31, officials said.
Behind the scenes, EU officials are adamant that none of that's likely to fly, especially if the Irish government maintains its approach of not wanting anything to disrupt cross-border trade, a position that the EU supports. After speaking to Johnson on Wednesday evening, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said the proposals "don't meet the agreed objectives of the backstop," his office said in a statement.
