London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Saturday, Sep 12, 2026

Boris Johnson will amend Brexit bill to outlaw extension

Boris Johnson will amend Brexit bill to outlaw extension

Legal block on finalising deal after 2020 removes safety net below negotiations with EU
Boris Johnson will attempt to mark his election promise to “get Brexit done” by writing into law that the UK will leave the EU in 2020 and will not extend the transition period.

As MPs begin to be sworn in at Westminster on Tuesday, the prime minister’s team is working on amending the withdrawal agreement bill so that the transition, also known as the implementation period, must end on 31 December 2020 and there will be no request to the EU for a further extension.

A Downing Street source said: “Our manifesto made clear that we will not extend the implementation period and the new withdrawal agreement bill will legally prohibit government agreeing to any extension.”

Johnson’s move to make his manifesto promise legally binding was mooted during the election campaign. His pledge not to ask for another extension was used by the Brexit party leader, Nigel Farage, as the reason why he would stand down his candidates in 317 Tory-held seats.

The newly elected House of Commons is likely to have its first vote on Johnson’s Brexit plan on Friday, Downing Street said.

Late on Monday, the prime minister announced a small reshuffle of his cabinet, appointing Simon Hart as secretary of state for Wales after Alun Cairns stood down from the post over what he knew about an allegation that a former aide had sabotaged a rape trial.

The former culture secretary Nicky Morgan, who stood down as an MP, was re-appointed to the job, and simultaneously given a peerage. A replacement for the environment minister Zac Goldsmith, who lost his seat to the Liberal Democrats, is also set to be announced, with a much larger reshuffle expected in the New Year.

The Commons resumes on Tuesday with the timetable initially taken up with two days of swearing in MPs, followed by the state opening of parliament and the Queen’s speech.

Johnson’s spokesman said: “We plan to start the process before Christmas and will do so in the proper, constitutional way, in discussion with the Speaker.”

Under Johnson’s plan Britain is to leave the EU on 31 January once the bill passes, at which point the transition phase with the EU kicks in.

During this period, the UK is expected to leave the customs union and single market and enter new negotiated arrangements, but will follow most EU law like other member states. It will not have voting rights in the EU institutions.

There has been provision for the UK and EU to jointly agree, on a one-off basis, to extend that period by a further period of up to two years, under article 132 of the withdrawal agreement, which was hugely unpopular with with some Conservative MPs keen on a hard Brexit on World Trade Organization terms.

The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, said Johnson’s election victory and majority in the Commons means the likelihood of the UK crashing out of the European Union has decreased.

“The worst-case scenario is effectively a no-deal, disorderly Brexit. The probability of that scenario has gone down because of the election result and the intention of the new government,” Carney said, speaking in a press conference after the publication of the central bank’s financial stability report.

“The scenario itself and the risks that we protect the system against has not itself changed, it’s just become less likely.”

The 109 new Tory MPs attended a private party with the prime minister last night to celebrate taking their seats, some in places that had been held by Labour for close to a century. They also posed for a photograph in parliament’s Westminster Hall.

Their first major task as MPs will be giving the withdrawal agreement bill its first reading, a formality not involving a debate, and then the second reading, which involves a debate as well as a vote.

Having both on the same day will need the formal approval of the new Commons Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle.

“We will present a bill which will ensure we get Brexit done before the end of January. It will reflect the agreement made with the EU on our withdrawal,” the No 10 spokesman said.

“The PM made clear during the general election campaign that he would be aiming for a Canada-style free trade agreement with no political alignment.”

While it is understood in Brussels that Johnson was unlikely to ask to extend the transition period, senior sources have suggested the EU itself could have sought to take the political pain out of such a move by asking for extra time.

Officials in Brussels have discussed such an option in recent days but the prime minister’s initiative would remove that safety net.

Such is the scale of the negotiation, the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has already said that a number of key areas will have to be dealt with after 2020, including aviation and any special arrangements for the UK’s financial services sector.

A failure to agree on state aid and environmental standards, among others, would lead to a tough and likely protracted negotiation on the level of tariffs that would be applied to goods crossing the channel.

The block on an extension also piles on the pressure on the government to have the right infrastructure ready at ports through which goods move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
UK Reviews Nationwide Emergency Alert Tests After Systems Meet Reliability Targets
UK Seeks Faster Rail Links Across Northern Industrial Corridors
British Business Bank Allocates £150 Million for High-Growth Companies in Northern England
BBC Warns Staff Strikes Are Possible Amid Pay Dispute and £500 Million Savings Drive
UK Backs Short Extension of UN Sudan Sanctions Regime
Prime Minister Andy Burnham Defends Early Prison Release Reforms and Growth Strategy
Reform UK Faces Scrutiny Over Alleged Effort to Circumvent Foreign Donation Rules
UK Analysts Warn Tax Rises or Spending Cuts May Be Needed to Preserve Fiscal Headroom
Jaguar Land Rover Plans Up to 4,000 Job Cuts in £1.7 Billion Cost-Saving Drive
UK Chancellor Warns of Difficult October Budget as Borrowing Costs Rise
UK Declares Israeli Occupation of West Bank Unlawful and Expands Sanctions
UK House of Commons Rejects Assisted Dying Bill for England and Wales
English Councils to Gain Power to Introduce Tourist Taxes by 2028
Kemi Badenoch Reshuffles Conservative Shadow Cabinet
Firefighters Make Progress Containing Major Wildfires in South Wales
John Lewis Partnership Reports £124 Million Loss
Study Says UK AI Data Centres Will Create Only a Quarter of Forecast Jobs
UK Government Considers Higher Industrial Water Prices Amid Supply Pressures
Andy Burnham Holds First Call With Donald Trump as UK Prime Minister
NHS Records Busiest Summer on Record as Heatwaves Drive Hospital Admissions
Home Secretary Orders Police Crackdown on Far-Right Anti-Migrant Vigilantes
UK Supreme Court Rules Northern Ireland Religious Education Curriculum Breaches Human Rights Standards
Markets Price in Four Bank of England Rate Rises by Next Summer
House of Commons Prepares Free Vote on Assisted Dying Bill
UK Government Bans Trade With Israeli Settlements in Occupied Territories
UK Economy Grows 0.4% in July as Artificial Intelligence Investment Supports Expansion
Andy Burnham Becomes UK Prime Minister After Keir Starmer Resigns
John Lewis Partnership Loss Widens to £124 Million
UK Government to Put White Working-Class Social Mobility at Centre of Equality Policy
McLaren Plans £450 Million Technology Investment Creating 1,000 UK Jobs
UK Chancellor Faces Calls for Wealth Taxes and Public Ownership in Autumn Budget
English Mayors to Gain Powers to Impose Uncapped Overnight Tourist Taxes
JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon Warns UK Government Against Bank Windfall Taxes
UK Air Traffic Control Outage Cancels More Than 2,000 Flights
UK Imposes Trade Ban on Israeli Settlements in the West Bank
UK Borrowing Costs Surge as Middle East Tensions Push Long-Term Gilt Yields to Highest Since 1998
Buckingham Palace Says Prince Harry and Meghan Will Not Resume Official Royal Duties
UK Treasury Faces Calls to Scrap £100,000 Childcare Support Threshold
Trades Union Congress Urges Labour Government to Rewrite Migration Policy
Riot Police Deployed After Anti-Migrant Protests Turn Violent in Portsmouth
UK Considers Replacing Some Disability Cash Payments With Direct Services
JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon Warns UK Chancellor Against Higher Banking Taxes
UK Announces New Sanctions Targeting Israeli Settlements in West Bank
Metropolitan Police Investigate Alleged Illegal Donations to Reform UK
UK Charges Wiltshire Man With Assisting Russian Intelligence
UK Orders Urgent Review After Air Traffic Failure Cancels More Than 2,000 Flights
Merz Rebukes AfD Expansion in Saxony-Anhalt
King Charles Confirms Prince Harry and Meghan Will Remain Private Citizens
Labour Selects Former Child Refugee for By-Election in Keir Starmer’s Former Seat
Foreign Private Equity Accelerates Takeovers of London-Listed Industrial Companies
×