'I'll be back. No deal' - Boris Johnson as he leaves Downing St.

[Cypher_09]

[t]http://i.imgur.com/Iw0IAdN.jpg[/t][I]
"Mayor of London says PM’s pledge to ensure sovereignty of parliament needs more work if he is to back pro-EU campaign"
[/I]
[quote]Boris Johnson has told David Cameron that he needs to do more to win his support for the referendum campaign to keep Britain in the EU.

As the prime minister embarks on a final round of telephone calls with EU leaders before a summit in Brussels, he was told by the London mayor that he needs to strengthen his plans to reassert the sovereignty of the UK parliament.

Nothing had changed, the mayor is said to have remarked during a Downing Street meeting on Wednesday, and reportedly added that more was needed.

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Johnson, who has yet to announce publicly which side he will back in the referendum campaign, broke off from a half-term holiday with his family to meet the prime minister following a telephone call on Tuesday. As he left the meeting in No 10, Johnson said: “I’ll be back – no deal as far as I know.”

A source close to the mayor said he would live up to his commitment to outline his position on the EU “with deafening éclat” on Friday if the prime minister secures a deal at the EU summit, which opens in Brussels on Thursday afternoon. The source said: “The mayor will make everything abundantly clear by the end of the week if the prime minister gets a deal on Friday. He is genuinely undecided.”

Johnson told Cameron more work was necessary on his plan to assert parliament’s sovereignty. Oliver Letwin, the prime minister’s policy chief, has been tasked with outlining measures to deliver on his pledge to put that issue “beyond doubt”.

Cameron’s vow in the Commons earlier this month came after Johnson asked him to explain how his EU reforms would “assert the sovereignty of this House of Commons and these Houses of Parliament”. Cameron replied: “I am keen to do even more to put it beyond doubt that this House of Commons is sovereign. We will look to do that at the same time as concluding these negotiations.”

Letwin is understood to be examining two ways to deliver on this pledge:

A declaration that the UK supreme court or another official body would have similar powers to those of the German constitutional court, which has the right to assess whether legal acts by the EU’s institutions remain within the scope of the powers of the EU.
An amendment to legislation to make clear that the UK’s agreement to the primacy of EU law – which dates back to 1972 – was gifted by parliament and could therefore be withdrawn by parliament.

Johnson’s talks with the prime minister mainly focused on the sovereignty of parliament because that is a matter that rests entirely with the UK government and is not part of the EU negotiations. But Downing Street believes it has to chart a careful course to win over Johnson without alarming EU leaders who may fear that Britain is seeking to overturn one of the key principles of the EU – the primacy of EU law.

The London mayor also asked the prime minister about the state of the negotiations on restricting in-work benefits, asserting the role of national parliaments, giving Britain an opt-out from the EU’s commitment to ever-closer union and promoting competitiveness. But the EU negotiation package was not the main part of their discussions because the mayor accepts that he can bring the greatest influence to bear on asserting the sovereignty of parliament.

Johnson, who has his eye on succeeding Cameron, has been trying to find a way of supporting the UK’s membership of the EU while shoring up his base among grassroots Tory Eurosceptics. Over the summer, he met the Vote Leave campaign director Dominic Cummings to discuss his idea for two referendums. But he backed away from this idea that the referendum would be a definitive decision. In the autumn, he started to champion the idea of reasserting the sovereignty of parliament.

The discussions in Downing Street came as Donald Tusk, the European council president, prepares to publish a final draft of his proposals for a new settlement for the UK ahead of the summit. Tusk said on Tuesday that EU leaders would have to go an “extra mile” to reach an agreement.[/quote]

It's hard to pinpoint a source as the various news outlets seem to be updating today's news on the referendom straight away as it comes out, but here they are at present:

[url]http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/17/eu-referendum-david-cameron-boris-johnson-talks-downing-street[/url]
[url]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12160851/EU-deal-leaked-memo-European-leaders-plot-against-David-Cameron-live.html[/url]

Video in the second link.

[The mouse]

[URL="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-david-cameron-told-by-eastern-bloc-countries-his-benefits-plan-is-unacceptable-a6877901.html"]It's funny because Cameron is going to come back with even less than he promised earlier this month[/URL]

I don't know how anyone in the Conservative party can in all good conscience support Cameron on this

[Aphtonites]

[QUOTE]I'll be back. No deal[/QUOTE]
Didn't know that Boris conducted all of his meetings with an Arnold Schwarzenegger soundboard

[Fulcrum]

[QUOTE=The mouse;49759222][URL="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-david-cameron-told-by-eastern-bloc-countries-his-benefits-plan-is-unacceptable-a6877901.html"]It's funny because Cameron is going to come back with even less than he promised earlier this month[/URL]

I don't know how anyone in the Conservative party can in all good conscience support Cameron on this[/QUOTE]

Could have omitted the "on this" part.

What is Boris holding out for exactly? It seems almost arbitrary like he's haggling with Cameron over 5p when buying a £3 wallet from a market.

The whole thing seems a bit of a farce, Cameron is just making a big deal of it so he looks tough and when the UK votes to stay in he can herald himself as the saviour and, if the UK votes to leave he can quickly switch sides and claim he tried to get a better deal but there's nothing for it but to leave.

[notgeogzm]

he looks like laeffy in that picture