Boris Johnson delivers Brexit deal to EU

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Britain has sent its proposals for a Brexit deal to leaders of the European Union, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson urging “rapid negotiations towards a solution.”

The proposals submitted on Wednesday focus on maintaining an open border between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland - the key sticking point to a Brexit deal.

British Brexit envoy David Frost arrived at the European Union’s headquarters in Brussels to deliver Johnson’s proposal for kick-starting stalled negotiations on a divorce deal.

Carrying a black leather portfolio, Frost did not speak to the media as he entered the Berlaymont Commission building.

The EU’s Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, plans to make a first assessment of the document to see if Johnson’s proposal is a basis for late-hour negotiations. 

Barnier then will take it to the European Parliament’s experts and the ambassadors of the 27 EU nations for further discussion.

EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker will also have a first look at the proposal that centre on how to manage the border on the island of Ireland. 

ohnson’s speech to Conservative Party members at their annual conference had been billed by his office as a take-it-or-leave-it “final offer” to the EU.

Yet as delivered, it was more like a plea to the bloc, and to Britons, to end more than three years of acrimonious wrangling over the terms of the U.K.’s exit from the EU.

“Let’s get Brexit done,” was the repeated refrain to delegates at the conference in Manchester, northwest England.

British voters in 2016 narrowly chose to leave the EU but the country remains deeply divided over how to do it. In his speech, Johnson said people who voted for Brexit “are beginning to feel that they are being taken for fools.”

“They are beginning to suspect that there are forces in this country that simply don’t want Brexit delivered at all,” he said in the nationally televised speech.

“And if they turn out to be right in that suspicion, then I believe there will be grave consequences for trust in our democracy.”

With Britain’s delayed departure from the bloc due to take place on October 31, Johnson said the government would send “constructive and reasonable proposals” to the EU later Wednesday.

He said the plan was “a compromise by the U.K. And I hope very much that our friends understand that and compromise in their turn.”

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