Just to watch the way Johnson answers a question with the word “No!”
As part of the same incredible interview by Andrew Neil for BBC in which Boris Johnson claimed he thinks the backstop should be ‘removed’ and resolved later, Neil also asked some relatively easy questions about trading plans for the UK following a no-deal Brexit.
Well, we should say they seemed like easy questions, but Johnson quickly tied himself up in knots answering it, getting hung up the paragraphs and article numbers, while apparently willfully ignoring any surrounding details.
When Neil asked about Johnson’s claims that the UK could simply continue on trading as they currently do with the EU with a no-deal Brexit, citing “GATT 24 Paragraph 5B”, claiming that it would allow both sides to extend the current zero-tariff, zero-quote arrangement.
Neil follows this up by asking about “Article 5C” – a mistake that Johnson pounces on and refuses to let go of for the remainder of the clip – before correcting himself and asking about “Paragraph 5C”, in which a timetable must be laid out with the EU regarding the new, non-UK set-up.
Which would seem to be in direct contrast to the plan that Johnson had just spelled out.
After being asked if he knew what the 5C paragraph consisted of, to which Johnson proudly answers “No!”, Johnson then accuses Neil of being too negative about the Brexit situation.
“Why this defeatism?”, asks Johnson, with little over 100 days until Brexit is (apparently) here for good.
Watch the whole interaction right here:
"Do you know what's in paragraph 5c?"
"No" @AfNeil challenges Boris Johnson on the detail of how the UK would trade with the EU after #Brexit
The Andrew Neil Interviews: Watch in full at 7pm on @BBCOne #BBCOurNextPM
[tap to expand] https://t.co/Vi5EqKlFAg pic.twitter.com/wEl81N4maG
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) July 12, 2019
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