Johnson will ask EU leaders to renegotiate Brexit deal

FE Team | Published: August 18, 2019 23:20:22

LONDON, Aug 18 (BBC): Boris Johnson will tell EU leaders there needs to be a new Brexit deal when he makes his first trip abroad as PM later this week.
The UK will leave the EU on 31 October with or without a deal, he will insist.
Meanwhile, the Sunday Times has printed leaked government documents warning of food, medicine and fuel shortages in a no-deal scenario.
A No 10 source told the BBC a former minister leaked the dossier to try to influence discussions with EU leaders.
The documents say the cross-government paper on preparations for a no-deal Brexit, codenamed Operation Yellowhammer, reveals the UK could face months of disruption at its ports.
It also states plans to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are unlikely to prove sustainable.
The Downing Street source told the BBC the leaked document "is from when ministers were blocking what needed to be done to get ready to leave and the funds were not available".
Michael Gove, who is responsible for overseeing the devolution consequences of Brexit, said in a tweet that Operation Yellowhammer was "a worst case scenario".
"V significant steps have been taken in the last 3 weeks to accelerate Brexit planning," he added.
Energy Minister Kwasi Kwarteng told Sky News' Sophy Ridge on Sunday: "I think there's a lot of scaremongering around and a lot of people are playing into project fear."
But a former head of the British civil service, Lord Bob Kerslake, who described the document as "credible", said the dossier "lays bare the scale of the risks we are facing with no-deal Brexit in almost every area".
"These risks are completely insane for this country to be taking and we have to explore every avenue to avoid them," he told BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House.
Irish deputy prime minister Simon Coveney said, in a tweet, that Ireland had "always been clear" a hard border in Ireland "must be avoided".