Boris Johnson is the new prime minister of the United Kingdom.
The pro-Brexiteer, who many thought helped start the fire then ran away, is now back at the helm, hoping to extinguish it.
The big question is: what can Johnson do that Theresa May couldn’t?
What has changed? Isn’t it the same train, just with a different conductor?
Johnson said he will demand a new deal from the European Union or will leave the EU without one.
I’m not sure that’s much of a threat or solves the problem, but maybe it’s not supposed to.
Johnson has to make something happen, and fast, or he risks wearing the failures of May’s government.
Its obvious Brexit isn’t going anywhere. If a deal hasn’t been hammered out by now, it never will be with the U.K. so heavily divided.
The new prime minister needs an election majority win to break the quagmire.
So Boris will make one last-ditch effort to push Brexit through by Halloween, asking the EU for even more and coming back empty-handed.
With both sides so entrenched and wanting a win, a palatable solution already seems impossible.
Johnson will then declare Brexit dead and prepare to exit the EU without a deal.
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That’s unless citizens are willing to look at something completely different which may make more happy, and which should have been done in the first place.
Since the country is split on staying or going, an exit agreement seems impossible, and another referendum seems questionable by law, why not return to what got the United Kingdom here in the first place: too much power for the centralized EU government in Brussels, and not enough say for the U.K.
Doesn’t every nation deal with that at some point?
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Johnson should declare a Brexit deal impossible without deep wounds to all sides — therefore, he should forget negotiating an exit, and instead design a new EU that’s compatible with each country, even if that means offering them more power.
Wouldn’t it be easier to renegotiate a new, more modern European Union than strike a deal to exit the old? It’s not like it hasn’t been done before.
The anti-Brexit camp would be happy because they would stay in the EU. The pro-Brexit camp would be happy because they would have more control over their own decisions.
At that point, Johnson could call another election, win a majority, and a new EU would emerge.
Scott Thompson is the host of The Scott Thompson Show on Global News Radio 900 CHML.