Take it or leave it: Johnson’s Brexit deal

Boris Johnson has presented the EU with a ‘final’ proposal in order to secure a Brexit deal.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson delivers his keynote speech to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has presented the European Union with a “final’’ take-it-or-leave-it proposal he said was fair and reasonable in order to secure a Brexit deal as he gave a rousing speech before a packed room to close the Conservative Party conference.

But hopes that Mr Johnson’s detailed plans — which involve two borders over four years for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland — would kickstart ­serious last-gasp talks with the European Union appeared overly ­optimistic.

Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney said: “If there are customs checks on Ireland, it won’t be the basis of any agreement.’’

Negotiators from the UK and the EU were meeting overnight in technical discussions, but the EU appeared to maintain its intransigence. The European Commission said it would examine the new plans “objectively, and in light of our well-known criteria”.

A spokesperson for EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said: “Any alternative plan to the Irish backstop must be legally operational and meet all the objectives of the existing backstop plan.”

This caution was in stark contrast to the almost wild determination of the Conservative Party, which has coalesced around Mr Johnson’s optimism and demands to get Brexit done by the end of the month or leave without a deal.

Queues to enter the Tory conference room in Manchester began four hours before the Prime Minister’s speech.

In his speech, which was peppered with laughs, Mr Johnson castigated the parliament for refusing to allow a general election.

“If parliament was a laptop, it would be showing a pizza wheel of doom … if it was a reality show, all of us would be voted out of the jungle by now,” he said in the speech.

“But at least we could have watched the spectacle of the speaker being forced to eat a kangaroo testicle.’’

He then added: “The sad truth is that voters have more say over I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here than over this House of Commons that refuses to deliver Brexit, or have an election.’’

Mr Johnson’s plan to the EU involves introducing a regulatory border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the Irish Sea for four years and a customs check on the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland for agricultural and industrial goods.

Then in 2025 the Northern Irish Assembly can choose if it wants to follow British rules, or remain aligned to the EU.

Mr Johnson has put huge political pressure on the EU — not only by threatening to remove the country from the bloc on October 31, but by insisting the EU legally grants Northern Ireland exemptions from the customs code and the rules replaced by alternative arrangements so that there will not be checks at the border.

He told the conference: “Today in Brussels we are tabling what I believe are constructive and reasonable proposals, which provide a compromise for both sides. We will under no circumstances have checks at or near the border in Northern Ireland.

“We will respect the peace process and the Good Friday agreement. By a process of renewable democratic consent by the executive and assembly of Northern Ireland we will go further and protect the existing regulatory arrangements for farmers and other businesses on both sides of the border.’’

Mr Johnson insisted the UK would also withdraw from EU control of trade policy from the start. “I am fed up we can’t do something when I passionately believe that we can,’’ Mr Johnson said. He said there were countries yearning to do deals, particularly the Commonwealth, and pitched for the UK to be a high-wage, low-tax, high-skilled economy.