UK PM sets sight at quick Brexit

Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday put Britain’s departure from the EU at the top of the agenda, as Queen Elizabeth II read out his plans for government in a parliamentary ceremony following a sweeping election win.

The monarch formally opened parliament with plenty of traditional pomp and pageantry before ermine and red-robed members of the upper House of Lords, and MPs from the lower House of Commons.

But before the monarch’s set-piece speech, Scotland’s first minister called for a new vote on independence, signalling a looming constitutional battle between London and Edinburgh.

Nicola Sturgeon said Brexit and election results north of the border made a clear “constitutional and democratic case” for a fresh look about whether Scotland should end its more than 300-year-old union with England and Wales.

She called on London to transfer powers allowing the devolved administration in Edinburgh to hold the vote.

Top of Johnson’s to-do list is a bill to ratify the terms of Britain’s exit from the European Union, which he negotiated in October but could not get through a deadlocked parliament.

Now with a comfortable majority in the 650-seat House of Commons, he hopes to push through the deal in time to fulfil his election campaign pledge to “Get Brexit Done” on the next EU deadline.

“My government’s priority is to deliver the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union on 31st January,” the queen confirmed from a gilded throne.

She added: “Thereafter, my ministers will seek a future relationship with the EU based on a free-trade agreement that benefits the whole of the United Kingdom.”

In a sign of the government’s vow to keep to the Brexit timetable, a spokesman said the Department for Exiting the European Union “will be wound up once the UK leaves the EU on 31 January”.

The highlight of the proposed legislation was the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) to ratify the terms of Brexit, which will be put to a first vote among MPs on Friday.

It covers Britain’s financial obligations to the EU, the rights of European expatriates and new arrangements for Northern Ireland.

The bill will also enshrine the dates of a transition period, which will keep EU-UK ties largely unchanged until December 31, 2020, to allow both sides to sign a new trade deal.

The period can be extended for up to two years but London insists this will not be necessary. But the EU has warned the timetable is extremely tight to agree a new relationship after Britain leaves the bloc’s single market and customs union.

The WAB also includes plans to allow courts other than the Supreme Court to overturn European Court of Justice rulings, to ensure Britain can more swiftly extricate itself from European case law.