Is Boris Johnson's Latest Brexit Proposal a Fair Compromise?

Is Boris Johnson's Latest Brexit Proposal a Fair Compromise?

It's a big week for Boris Johnson and Brexit. What's the latest?

Hague: I am in Dublin which is where all the focus is, how is the Irish government going to react to the proposals from Boris Johnson?

Miliband: There is now a Johnson plan for Northern Ireland to effectively remain in the single market at least for four years. But for it not to be in the Customs Union and therefore there to be customs checks north – south, on the island of Ireland.

Are these proposals a fair attempt at a compromise?

Hague: Well they are a fair attempt at getting a compromise going.

Miliband: It's a compromise between competing British positions not really a compromise with the European Union's fundamental concern, which is about the integrity of the single market.

Hague: Boris Johnson's really worked getting the Democratic Unionists and the hard liners in his own party into proposing this kind of compromise.

Does it make a deal more likely?

Hague: Well that depends how likely you thought it was in the first place.

Miliband: I actually think we've probably got less chance of a deal than we did a week ago but it's not yet zero chance.

Hague: The British government was always going to make some serious proposals about now and it has done so.

Miliband: The experts are talking about a 10 to 20 percent chance, I think it's probably at the lower end of the range.

Hague: Now, I would have said before this the chances of those proposals leading to a deal would only be about 25 percent. Maybe we just increased that, a little bit, to a 30 percent chance or something like that. The odds are still against it.

Miliband: But the European Union will be careful not to dismiss this out of hand. It doesn't want to get the blame for no deal.

Hague: There are some big problems for Ireland and the EU in these proposals over customs and other issues. We shall see.

More from GZERO Media

Members of the armed wing of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress line up waiting to vote in a military base north of Pretoria, on April 26, 1994.
REUTERS/Corinne Dufka

On April 27, 1994, Black South Africans went to the polls, marking an end to years of white minority rule and the institutionalized racial segregation known as apartheid. But the “rainbow nation” still faces many challenges, with racial equality and economic development remaining out of reach.

"Patriots" on Broadway: The story of Putin's rise to power | GZERO Reports

Putin was my mistake. Getting rid of him is my responsibility.” It’s clear by the time the character Boris Berezovsky utters that chilling line in the new Broadway play “Patriots” that any attempt to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rise would be futile, perhaps even fatal. The show opened for a limited run in New York on April 22.

TITLE PLACEHOLDER | GZERO US Politics

Campus protests are a major story this week over the Israeli operation in Gaza and the Biden administration's support for it. These are leading to accusations of anti-Semitism on college campuses, and things like canceling college graduation ceremonies at several schools. Will this be an issue of the November elections?

The view Thursday night from inside the Columbia University campus gate at 116th Street and Amsterdam in New York City.
Alex Kliment

An agreement late Thursday night to continue talking, disagreeing, and protesting – without divesting or policing – came in stark contrast to the images of hundreds of students and professors being arrested on several other US college campuses on Thursday.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Judge Amy Coney Barrett after she was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S. October 26, 2020.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Some of the conservative justices (three of whom were appointed by Trump) expressed concern that allowing former presidents to be criminally prosecuted could present a burden to future commanders-in-chief.

A Palestinian woman inspects a house that was destroyed after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, April 24, 2024.
Abed Rahim Khatib/Reuters

“We are afraid of what will happen in Rafah. The level of alert is very high,” Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, said Thursday.

Haiti's new interim Prime Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert holds a glass with a drink after a transitional council took power with the aim of returning stability to the country, where gang violence has caused chaos and misery, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti April 25, 2024.
REUTERS/Pedro Valtierra

Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry formally resigned on Thursday as a new transitional body charged with forming the country’s next government was sworn in.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives at the Beijing Capital International Airport, in Beijing, China, April 25, 2024.
Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought up concerns over China's support for Russia with his counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Friday, before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Flags from across the divide wave in the air over protests at Columbia University on Thursday, April 25, 2024.
Alex Kliment

Of the many complex, painful issues contributing to the tension stemming from the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and the ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza, dividing groups into two basic camps, pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, is only making this worse. GZERO Publisher Evan Solomon explains the need to solve this category problem.