UK Parliament Debates Brexit Agreement As Thousands Call For Second Referendum In The Streets Of London

The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, urged MEPs to adopt the agreement of Brexit once and for all, fearing that Saturday's vote, supposedly historic, would be postponed, which would worsen the uncertainty 12 days after the fateful date of the divorce with the European Union.

After coming back triumphant from Brussels with a new deal under the arm that everyone described as impossible, Johnson had to submit it to MPs for approval to get the country out of the EU, as promised, the 31st.

British politics is paralyzed by this "Only problem that the camera seems unable to solve", Johnson told the deputies, summoned Saturday for the first time since the Falklands War in 1982. And he urged them to approve their agreement: a new postponement would be "useless, expensive and destructive," he said.

But not all the British are in agreement. So while MPs were debating Tens of thousands of people march in central London to claim a second referendum coming out of the country of the crisis in which the consultation of 2016 had plunged it, when the Brexit had won with 52% of the votes.

Johnson's agreement is threatened by an amendment, proposed by independent MP Oliver Letwin, which, if approved, would delay the adoption of the text.

The amendment, which will be voted on in the afternoon, proposes that the agreement be adopted only when all the necessary legislative measures for its implementation have been approved.

If the amendment is approved, the government could proceed to vote on the agreement but, even if it gets the green light, its adoption would be suspended and Johnson should request a postponement of the Brexit at the end of the day. .

But the text could also be rejected out loud, as has happened three times with the previous deal negotiated by former Prime Minister Theresa May, all the more because of the opposition of the small Norwegian party DUP, the main ally of the government.

The Johnson agreement and the border with Ireland

The new agreement picks up what was negotiated in May but alters its most contentious point: how to avoid a physical border between the British province of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, a member country of the The EU, in order to preserve the fragile peace agreement of Good Friday, which in 1998 ended three decades of bloody conflict in the region between Protestant trade unionists and Catholic Republicans.

The current text provides a complex technical solution for the British province would continue to be governed by certain regulations of the single European market and would remain de facto in a customs union with the EUeven though it would remain legally in the same customs area as the rest of the United Kingdom.

The project, however, faces opposition from the DUP. "It must be a Brexit for the whole of the United Kingdom," said Nigel Dodds, Norwegian MP.

Opposed to any kind of Brexit, the SNP's Scottish nationalists and centrist Liberals, whose leader, Jo Swinson, said Johnson's deal "would hurt the British economy" will also vote against the government.

Labor MPs, the main opposition force, also received the slogan of rejecting the text and supporting Letwin 's amendment. But some, coming from Brexit constituencies, could support the government.

Johnson expects them and some independents to support him for end of the years of political crisis and social division, adding his support to all – or almost to his conservative MPs, including supporters of a tough Brexit.

If the text is rejected, the country will sink further into chaos and drag on to an EU torn apart by a problem that has already been closed twice. We would be "in a very complicated situation," acknowledged Friday the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker.