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Johnson says he has ‘mixed feelings’ about NI protocol deal, which is ‘not about UK taking back control’
Johnson defends the Northern Ireland protocol bill.
He says it went through the Commons unamended.
And, given that, he has “mixed feelings” about Rishi Sunak’s protocol renegotiation, he says. (He has not mentioned Sunak by name.)
He says he has great respect for the Democratic Unionist party leader, Jeffrey Donaldson.
He says he must be clear – “this is not about the UK taking back control”.
This is about the EU “graciously unbending” to allow the UK to do what it wants to do in this country “not by our laws, but theirs”.
UPDATE: Johnson said:
I’m conscious I’m not going to be thanked for saying this, but I think it is my job to do so, we must be clear about what is really going on here.
This is not about the UK taking back control and although there are easements this is really a version of the solution that was being offered last year to Liz Truss when she was foreign secretary.
This is the EU graciously unbending to allow us to do what we want to do in our own country, not by our laws, but by theirs.
Key events
Johnson says he needs to do ‘better job of explaining and supporting and defending Brexit’
Asked about his “next big job”, Johnson says he has got a “big budget of words” to write (a reference to his memoirs). But he also says he needs to do “a better job of explaining and supporting and defending Brexit”.
He says he cares deeply about the fact that Britain is so unbalanced. He wants to continue campaigning for levelling up.
And he says he will continue to support Ukraine.
That’s it. The Q&A is over.
Johnson claims UK more influential in Europe after Brexit than it was before
Johnson says he thinks the UK is more influential in Europe now, outside the EU, than it was before.
I genuinely think it is true that we are now more influential in Europe, about foreign policy, because we’re outside it, outside the EU structure, than we were when we were in.
Johnson claims (not for the first time) that “Brexit saved lives” because it facilitated the UK’s speedy vaccine rollout programme.
(This is not true – although it is arguable that a more pro-European government might have joined the EU vaccine programme, instead of acting unilaterally. See this post, from the last time Johnson made this claim, for an analysis.)
Johnson says he wishes he had slashed business taxes, to outcompete Ireland, after UK left EU
The presenter takes Johnson back to Brexit.
Q: When this goes through, Brexit will be done.
Johnson says he doesn’t agree.
There is no point in this exercise if you don’t do things differently.
Q: So what would you differently?
Johnson says, in retrospect, he wishes they had “put a big ‘invest here’ sign over Britain as soon as we were out of Covid”. The UK should have outdone the Irish on low tax rates for business, he says.
He says they had a long civil war about Brexit. But the government has not yet shown what it will do differently, for example on gene editing. He says, on financial services and data, there should also be divergence.
UPDATE: Johnson said:
There’s no point now in just emulating the high-tax, high-spend, low-growth European model.
We should think not about raising corporation tax but cutting corporation tax to Irish levels or lower and really turbocharging investment to drive levelling up across the whole country, really showing the world what they wanted to see from 2016 onwards: that we are different now, because this is a Brexit government or this is nothing.
Johnson is now talking about the BBC. He says he owes everything to the BBC: “They launched me,” he says (referring to his appearances on Have I Got News for You). But when he goes to BBC studios they are full of people, while independent networks have far fewer members of staff, he says. He implies they are more efficient, and he says the independents have been “cannibalised” by the BBC.
He says he thought of this when he was responsible for making people pay the licence fee.
The BBC should also be raising more revenue for the UK, he says.
Asked about Ukraine, Johnson says he thinks it will win, but that it is going to be tough.
Going back to Brexit, he says he faced a tough audience with his message earlier. (The audience is mostly remain.) But he asks if anyone thinks Russia has a grain of a case with Ukraine, and he is gratified when he finds that on this he has the audience on his side.
Johnson says people want to ‘move on’ from Brexit and he ‘gets that’
Johnson is now taking questions.
He says people do not feel economic change from Brexit.
But the country has to break from the economic model it is in.
The presenter raises the “Windsor framework”.
Johnson suggests he has said enough about this.
It is clear that people want to move on, he says. They want a deal, no more ructions. He gets that, he says.
Johnson says ‘this is nothing if it is not a Brexit government’
Johnson says he will continue to campaign for proper Brexit.
I will continue to campaign for what I think of as Brexit … because this is nothing if it is not a Brexit government, and Brexit is nothing if we in this country don’t do things differently.
He cites examples where the UK can benefit from diverging from EU rules. Gene editing is one example, he says.
He says the Covid vaccine programme was another example of Britain benefiting by daring to be different.
And Ukraine policy is another example too, he says.
By daring to be different, Brexit has encouraged, now, the rest of Europe to give arms to the Ukrainians.
Johnson ends by expressing his support for Ukraine.
Johnson says he would find it ‘very difficult’ to vote for protocol deal, which would be ‘drag anchor on divergence’
Johnson says the protocol deal will be a “drag anchor on divergence”.
And, he asks, who votes for the people who will make the single market laws – about what pets can be taken to Northern Ireland, or what goods can be sold there?
No one in Britain or Northern Ireland votes for these people (EU commissioners), he says.
He says he would find it “very difficult” to vote for the protocol deal.
He hopes it will work, he says.
But if it doesn’t, the government should bring back the Northern Ireland protocol bill, he says. (This is the bill that would allow the UK to ignore parts of the protocol.)
UPDATE: Johnson said:
I’m going to find it very difficult to vote for something like this myself, because I believed we should’ve done something very different. No matter how much plaster came off the ceiling in Brussels,” he said.
I hope that it will work and I also hope that if it doesn’t work we will have the guts to employ that bill again, because I have no doubt at all that that is what brought the EU to negotiate seriously.
Johnson says he has ‘mixed feelings’ about NI protocol deal, which is ‘not about UK taking back control’
Johnson defends the Northern Ireland protocol bill.
He says it went through the Commons unamended.
And, given that, he has “mixed feelings” about Rishi Sunak’s protocol renegotiation, he says. (He has not mentioned Sunak by name.)
He says he has great respect for the Democratic Unionist party leader, Jeffrey Donaldson.
He says he must be clear – “this is not about the UK taking back control”.
This is about the EU “graciously unbending” to allow the UK to do what it wants to do in this country “not by our laws, but theirs”.
UPDATE: Johnson said:
I’m conscious I’m not going to be thanked for saying this, but I think it is my job to do so, we must be clear about what is really going on here.
This is not about the UK taking back control and although there are easements this is really a version of the solution that was being offered last year to Liz Truss when she was foreign secretary.
This is the EU graciously unbending to allow us to do what we want to do in our own country, not by our laws, but by theirs.
Johnson describes Northern Ireand protocol as ‘all my fault’
Johnson is now talking about Brexit, and Northern Ireland. News coming up ….
He says if the UK wanted to get out of the customs union, and keep an open border on Ireland, then there would have to be checks on goods going from Britain to Northern Ireland.
Purely “to help the EU”, the UK agreed to those checks.
Johnson says he thought the checks would not be onerous. “It was all my fault,” he says, as an aside.
Johnson said this almost as a joke. But it is not something he has said before, and it is a concession of sorts to Rishi Sunak.
Johnson says the Guardian recently said a speech of his was “shocking”.
I’m not sure what he is referring to, but this one certainly is. It is hackneyed and rambling, almost incoherent. But his speeches often are.
Presumably, though, at some point he will say something that counts as news.
While taking a swipe at Keir Starmer, Johnson adds a line about the Tories being “only a handful of points” behind Labour when he stood down as PM.
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