Why Boris Johnson will be forced to delay Brexit until next year

• Boris Johnson and his Downing Street team continue to insist that the UK will leave the EU on October 31.
• But the reality is that the prime minister is almost certainly going to forced into asking the EU for a Brexit delay until at least early next year.
• That is because the law compels Johnson to request an Article 50 extension if he is unable to secure a deal, of which there a vanishingly small chance.
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Boris Johnson has repeatedly insisted that the United Kingdom will leave the European Union on October 31.

But the truth is that, by the end of this month, he will almost certainly have been forced to delay Brexit until at least January 2020.

Why? Put simply, his repeated "do-or-die" pledge to deliver Brexit should be read as positioning for a snap general election, rather than a sincere belief that he can take the UK out of the EU before the Halloween deadline.

The reality is that the Benn Act, which Johnson's parliamentary opponents passed into law in September, compels the prime minister to seek an Article 50 extension by October 19 if he is unable to secure a Brexit deal at the conclusion of a crunch summit of EU leaders in Brussels on the previous weekend.

And it appears very unlikely that a deal is forthcoming.

Downing Street's new proposals, submitted to the European Commission this week, were called a "final offer" by Johnson but "meaningless" and "not operational in any way" by Michel Barnier, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator.

READ MORE: Boris Johnson has been given one week to improve his Brexit plan

While the European Commission has not (yet) rejected Johnson's proposals outright, many senior figures have indicated that they are unworkable, because they would require customs checks on the island of Ireland, which would appear to contravene the terms of the Good Friday peace agreement.

European ambassadors, following a meeting with Barnier, have told Johnson that he has a week to alter his proposals, meaning that - even if an agreement in future might be feasible - getting it done by October 31 is all but impossible.

An October 31 Brexit - deal or no deal - is very unlikely

The vanishingly small chance of a deal leaves Downing Street very little wiggle room in its attempts to avoid a Brexit delay. Government sources have consistently briefed senior journalists that the Benn Act contains loopholes which mean that Johnson's promise to obey the law is compatible with his promise to leave the UK on October 31.

But the legislation is very tightly drafted and no serious loopholes have been publicly identified. On Friday, Downing Street even appeared to confirm it would seek a Brexit extension in documents submitted to Scotland's Court of Session, where activist lawyers had sought a binding commitment that the government will obey terms of the Benn Act.

So why, following the publication of the documents, did a "senior Downing Street source" insist to the BBC that the UK would be able to get around the Benn Act and implement Brexit?

The best answer is that the government knows an election is coming

Taking the UK out of the EU on time is the prime minister's central pledge, and his advisers know that the Brexit Party - fronted by arch-Leaver Nigel Farage - will be ready to pounce if Johnson fail's to deliver on the central pledge on his premiership by hoovering up voters in the polls.

To that end, the government will have calculated that it needs to be seen to strain every sinew to deliver Brexit on time. When it does, inevitably, request an extension, it can at least try to construct the narrative that, despite its best efforts, it was dragged kicking and screaming to Brussels to request an Brexit delay by a Remain-leaning parliament, and by the judiciary - which recently quashed Johnson's attempt to suspend parliament for five weeks.

Whether Johnson can maintain his level in support of the polls after seeking an extension and breaking the central pledge of his premiership is another question - and one for which there will likely be an answer in just a few weeks.

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