Boris Johnson Is Getting a Free Pass on Brexit
This is the Brexit election — but Johnson’s deal is the one subject nobody wants to talk about.
Dodging scrutiny.
Photographer: FRANK AUGSTEIN/AFPTo understand what’s so very odd about this British election campaign, it’s worth recalling where we were a month ago in the Brexit saga. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had returned from Brussels triumphant with a new withdrawal deal. All he needed was Parliament to give its okay — the same Parliament that had rejected his predecessor Theresa May’s deal three times.
The augurs were better this time around. He’d managed to reel back in most of the lawmakers from his Conservative Party who’d left (or, rather, been kicked out) over his Brexit policy. They were adamantly opposed to a no-deal exit from the European Union, but some could be reconciled to his solution, which took the U.K. out of the bloc’s customs union and by a sleight of hand — which created new trade frictions between Northern Ireland and the British mainland — kept the Irish border open. He also had some Labour MPs on side.