SECOND TAKE
THE GUARDIAN: Trust in Johnson waning on move to remodel Brexit
UK prime minister considers going back on the deal he negotiated
Boris Johnson won the last election in part because he could say on what terms he would leave the EU and his opponents could not. He had an “oven-ready” deal. Yet the agreement Johnson secured with the EU was one his predecessor, Theresa May, had rejected because it split Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, placing the province in the regulatory orbit of Brussels. The prime minister knew this because he had made the same criticism. Last autumn, cornered by his own logic but desperate for a deal, Johnson signed up to a dud agreement.
The damaging consequences of his choices are threatening to capsize EU-UK trade talks. Johnson’s solution is to go back on the deal he had negotiated. The impression is that his words are not worth the paper they are written on. If this was allowed there could be no confidence that the UK would stick to its side of the bargain in any trade arrangement. A Britain that reneges on international agreements can hardly lecture rogue states when the...
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