Sajid Javid the Tory leadership hopeful refused to rule out extending Brexit in an interview with Andrew Marr on Sunday.
Javid told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show, “I’m clear that my plan would be to leave on October 31. I want to leave with a deal but if I have to choose between no deal and no Brexit, I would pick no deal.”
Marr pressed the home secretary on the matter and he said, “That’s not something I would do, but we are a parliamentary democracy and what we’ve seen in the last few months is Parliament has taken on some extraordinary powers to initiate its own legislation so if it’s statute, if it’s the law, I would not break the law if I was prime minister, of course I would observe the law.”
Speaking on the controversial Irish backstop Javid said, “In my department at the moment I’ve got Border Force and we’ve done work for months on what an alternative to that arrangement could look like and what’s missing is that good will.
“What I would do is make a grand gesture to Ireland that we would cover all their costs – the upfront costs, the running costs – of a new digitised border.
“I think it could be done in a couple of years, but I think we could cover their costs.”
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