Day: October 20, 2019

    Boris Johnson has sent an unsigned letter to European council president Donald Tusk requesting a further Brexit delay beyond 31 October accompanied by a signed one arguing against it. The prime minister sent three letters: an unsigned photocopy of the request he was obliged to send under the Benn Act, an explanatory letter from the UK’s ambassador to the EU and a personal letter explaining why Downing Street did not want an extension. In the signed message, he warned of the “corrosive impact” of a long delay, and that “a further extension would damage the interests of the UK and our EU partners, and the relationship between us”. He said Parliament had “missed the opportunity to inject momentum into the ratification process” yet remained confident Brexit legislation ...

    Michael Gove has insisted the UK will leave the EU by October 31, despite Boris Johnson writing to the EU to ask for a Brexit extension. Asked if he could guarantee that the UK would leave the EU by Halloween, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said: “Yes, that’s our determined policy." He told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “We know that the EU want us to leave, we know that we have a deal that allows us to leave.” "We are going to leave by October 31st. We have the means and the ability to do so and people who yesterday we had some people who voted for delay, voted explicitly to try to frustrate this process and to drag it out. “I think actually the mood in the country is clear and the Prime Minister’s determination is absolute and I am with him in this, we...