Boris Johnson warns against ’bog-roll Brexit’

LONDON - Agence France-Presse

Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson talks to a British armed forces serviceman based in Orzysz, in northeastern Poland, during a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and following talks on security with his Polish counterpart Jacek Czaputowicz in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, June 21, 2018. AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski

Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson, who campaigned to leave the European Union, on Saturday warned Prime Minister Theresa May against a Brexit that was "soft, yielding and seemingly infinitely long" like toilet roll.

Writing in The Sun on the second anniversary of the historic vote, Johnson urged against a "bog-roll Brexit", British slang for toilet roll, and called on his boss to "fulfil the mandate of the people and deliver a full British Brexit".

May’s team is about to enter into the next round of negotiations with EU counterparts, but is still to define exactly what it wants from Britain’s future relationship with the continent, particularly in the area of customs regulation.

Anti-Brexit campaigners were due to mark the anniversary later Saturday with a demonstration in London demanding a "people’s vote" on whether to approve the final deal May strikes with the EU, if an agreement is struck at all.

Trade minister Liam Fox, an arch eurosceptic, insisted that the prime minister was still prepared to walk away from the talks if no satisfactory deal was reached.

"The prime minister has always said no deal is better than a bad deal," Fox told the BBC in an interview aired on Saturday.

"It is essential as we enter the next phase of the negotiations that the EU understands that and believes it... I think our negotiating partners would not be wise if they thought our PM was bluffing."

Johnson, who was the most prominent face in the campaign to leave the EU, wrote that the British people "just want us to get on with it".

"They don’t want a half-hearted Brexit," he wrote.

"They don’t want some sort of hopeless compromise, some perpetual push me-pull you arrangement in which we stay half-in and half-out in a political no man’s land.

"Two years ago the people of this country recorded a verdict about themselves -- that they had the guts to believe in Britain. They were right and will be proved right in the decades ahead," he added.

However, aviation giant Airbus warned on Friday it could pull out of Britain if it leaves the EU without a deal, while carmaker BMW also warned that uncertainty was affecting the investment climate.

The march against Brexit will end outside the Houses of Parliament, and is part of a "summer of action" planned by campaign groups to put pressure on political leaders to hold a vote on the final deal.