Boris Johnson grilled on Brexit plan

Our live coverage is over for the day. Read Luke McGee’s analysis of Boris Johnson’s latest Brexit plan here.

European Council President Donald Tusk has spoken to both Leo Varadkar and Boris Johnson on Thursday.

Tusk once again stressed the EU was united behind Ireland. This is crucial: Ireland is a small member state and the circumstances make it vulnerable. It needs support from Brussels and the biggest member states, including Germany and France.

Ireland is the only state with a land border with the UK. That border was at the center of a decades-long conflict between Northern Ireland and Ireland; now it’s at the center of the Brexit deadlock.

Here is a reminder that it’s not just the opposition and the EU who seem fairly pessimistic about Boris Johnson’s new Brexit proposals.

Hard-core Brexiteers, led by Nigel Farage, are also criticizing the plan, calling it “Fake Brexit.”

Farage and his Brexit Party would prefer the UK to leave the European Union without a deal – an event economists say would hurt the UK economy.

European Parliament’s Brexit Steering group has said the Brexit proposal presented to the EU by Boris Johnson “do not match even remotely what was agreed as a sufficient compromise in the backstop.”

The EU Parliament said Johnson's proposals do not address the main issues.

Europe’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier met the members of European Parliament’s Brexit Steering group on Thursday, to brief them on Boris Johnson’s latest proposals.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Boris Johnson’s Brexit plans “fall short in a number of aspects.”

Varadkar said he failed to see how, under the proposal, Northern Ireland and Ireland could operate under different customs regimes without customs posts.

“No one party should be able to block the majority view on the island,” he said, referring to the fact that the plan seems to be aimed at pleasing the DUP.

 “Any consent mechanism and democracy mechanism must reflect the views of the majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland,” said the Taoiseach.

Leo Varadkar said there was a contradiction between Johnson's words and what was in the submitted papers.

Varadkar pointed out a contradiction in Johnson’s statements.

“I’m reassured by what PM Johnson said, that he’s not proposing that there’ll be any new physical infrastructure on the island of Ireland linked to customs or custom checks. But that is actually in contradiction to the papers presented by the UK Gov yesterday.”

Johnson’s proposals mention the need for a small number of physical checks.

Here’s where the semantics come to play.

While a “small number” “away from the border” means “no new checks” to Johnson, it seems to mean something completely different to Varadkar.

“We do not want to see any customs posts between north and south, nor do we want to see any tariffs or restrictions on trade between north and south,” he said.

The Liberal Democrats’ Brexit spokesman, Tom Brake, tweeted that manufacturers in Northern Ireland have said they are being “thrown under the bus” by Boris Johnson’s plans, and have described them as “an existential threat.”

In Ireland, meanwhile, things are not looking great for Boris Johnson’s latest proposal.

Irish Deputy Prime Minister, or Tanaiste, Simon Coveney, has said that if the plan is Johnson’s final proposal, then there will be no deal.

Coveney said that “Ireland has not been treated well” during the Brexit process so far.

Angela McGowan, the head of the CBI Northern Ireland, a business lobby, said the proposal could lead to more uncertainty for businesses across Ireland and Northern Ireland.

That’s because under the plan, the rules would be reviewed periodically in order to make sure people in Northern Ireland agree with them.

McGowan said:

Northern Irish businesses are worried about more uncertainty.

The topic is crucial, the opinions are divisive. But the tone in which the discussion is taking place in Parliament on Thursday is calm, at least compared to the circus of the past few weeks.

Just last week, a furious Boris Johnson shouted at his opponents, using words like “surrender” and “betray.” The opposition was talking about a “coup.”

Johnson even dismissed as “humbug” the concerns of one MP, Paula Sherriff, who asked him to recall the politically motivated murder three years ago of a Labour lawmaker, Jo Cox.

On Thursday, everyone appeared to have taken their foot off the gas a little – much to the relief of Speaker John Bercow, who has lost his voice.

The atmosphere is calmer in Parliament.

Boris Johnson keeps calling the proposal he sent to the European Union “a deal.”

There is just one slight problem with that. There is no deal, the European Union has not agreed to anything yet, in fact, the first reactions to the proposal in Brussels were rather lukewarm.

Anna Soubry, the leader of the Independent Group for Change, criticized Boris Johnson’s proposals on Thursday and said the Prime Minister “hasn’t got any support of the European Union or Northern Ireland.”

“The DUP do not represent the people of Northern Ireland and I observe they can’t be bothered to turn up today,” she added to cheers from the House.

Following the 2017 election, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland propped up the Conservative government in Westminster. Then last month Johnson removed the party whip from 21 MPs who defied him over Brexit, and the DUP’s support was no longer needed.

On Wednesday, the DUP said the offer “provides a basis for the EU to continue in a serious and sustained engagement with the UK government without risk to the internal market of the United Kingdom.”

Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May is in the House of Commons for the debate. And she doesn’t look too hopeful about Boris Johnson’s new proposals.

May negotiated a Brexit deal with the European Union, only to have it rejected by Parliament three times.

That deal included the so-called Irish backstop – a clause preventing the return of a hard border to Ireland.

Johnson’s proposal is an attempt to ditch the backstop and find an alternative.

Theresa May wasn't able to push her agreement though Parliament in three separate votes.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said once again that the United Kingdom will leave the European Union as planned on October 31.

“With or without a deal,” the PM said.

However, there is one issue with that promise – a law preventing him from doing just that.

To prevent the country from crashing out of the EU without a deal, Parliament has passed a law, known as the Benn Act, that requires the Prime Minister to ask for a delay if no deal is agreed by October 19. 

Jo Swinson, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said that for people in Northern Ireland, physical checks are not acceptable – wherever they take place.

The SNP’s leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford, has accused the Prime Minister of designing the proposal in a way that makes it impossible for the European Union to accept.

Boris Johnson has warned the EU that if the UK leaves the EU without a deal it will be a “failure of statecraft for which all parties will be held responsible.”

He called on MPs to come together “in the national interest” so the country can move on from Brexit.

He said his government has “shown great flexibility.”

Johnson has outlined his proposals to the House of Commons.

In his response to Johnson’s statement, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is rubbishing the PM’s proposals:

Corbyn says the new plan jeopardizes peace in Northern Ireland, leads to a race to the bottom on workers’ rights and health, safety and environmental regulations.

The Prime Minister is once again admitting some custom checks will be necessary in Ireland under his proposed plan.

But he is downplaying the need for checks at the border:

But he also said this:

This is crucial. Ireland, and with it the rest of the European Union, has previously insisted that it cannot allow any checks, no matter where they take place. They argue that physical checks would breach the 1998 peace deal known as the Good Friday Agreement.

Privately, most EU diplomats think Johnson’s claim that his plan doesn’t breach the Good Friday Agreement is nonsense. And if the alternative solutions to the Irish question existed, we’d have probably seen them in the past three years.

There’s a growing sense that Johnson’s plan might be less a serious proposal to break the deadlock and more a political trap for the EU.

Read the full analysis here.

The EU is worried Boris Johnson's plan is a trap.

The Prime Minister has launched straight into his statement.

He opened by admitting the plan doesn’t have “everything we wished for” in it, saying it is a compromise.

He said: