‘No Ifs Or Buts’: Boris Johnson Creates War Cabinet to Deliver Brexit By End of October

The British government is working on the assumption that the European Union will not renegotiate its Brexit deal and is ramping up preparations to leave the bloc on Oct. 31 without an agreement, senior ministers said on Sunday. Boris Johnson, who took over as British prime minister on Wednesday with a promise to deliver Brexit by the end of October “no ifs or buts”, plans to seek a new exit deal with the EU. The EU has said repeatedly that the deal cannot be reopened. PM Boris Johnson has set up a ‘war cabinet’ to push through Brexit ‘by any means necessary’ by October 31. In a move similar to Tony Blair’s ‘sofa government’, Mr Johnson will make all key decisions over Brexit with a team of just six senior ministers – all of whom are Brexiteers. Michael Gove, Chancellor Sajid Javid, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay, and the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox will be the core group of advisors to plot the UK’s exit from the EU. Leading Brexit supporter Michael Gove, who Johnson has put in charge of ‘no deal’ preparations, wrote in the Sunday Times newspaper that the government would undertake “intensive efforts” to secure a better deal from the EU. “We still hope they will change their minds, but we must operate on the assumption that they will not … No deal is now a very real prospect and we must make sure that we are ready,” Gove wrote. “Planning for no deal…