As Britain and the European Union enter the pivotal week when Brexit might finally occur, Queen Elizabeth II is due to step into the fray by performing her ceremonial duty of informing the parliament about the government's agenda for the coming year.
This is also the week that determines if they are still on course to reach amicable divorce terms.
However, the chances of PM Boris Johnson's term lasting that long depends largely on the outcome of hurried discussions held behind closed doors in Brussels around the same time.
EU leaders will then meet on Thursday and Friday for a summit held under the pressures of the October 31 Brexit deadline just two weeks away.
According to the government, if a new agreement is reached at the summit, the new withdrawal agreement bill to be voted on next Saturday in a special Parliamentary session. This will be the fourth time the Parliament is meeting on a Saturday since 1939.
Diplomats see little hope that the sides can achieve in a few days what they had failed to since Britons first voted to leave the bloc after nearly 50 years in 2016.
“A lot of work remains to be done,” EU negotiator Michel Barnier told ambassador Sunday.
Technical talks are continuing — variously described as “intense” or “constructive” — but few familiar with the process can point to progress on the decisive issue of British Northern Ireland's place in the EU customs zone.
In the meantime, on the topic of the Northern Ireland border, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said he might consider accepting Mr Johnson's plan for Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK's customs territory but adhere to EU customs procedures.
Johnson rose to power in July on a promise not to extend Brexit for a third time even if only a few more weeks are needed to get a deal done. Government officials, however, say that they will respect the law requiring an extension to Brexit talks if, on October 19, a deal isn't agreed upon. Outgoing EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker said British politics were getting more difficult to decipher than the riddle of an “Egyptian sphinx”.
“If the British ask for more time, which they probably will not, it would in my view be historical nonsense to refuse them,” Juncker told Austria's Kurier newspaper.
Something will have to give when the British parliament holds its first emergency Saturday meeting since the 1982 Falklands War.
A long delay would be untenable for many eurosceptics ahead of an early election that some expect as early as December. But a short one of a few months might only come on the condition that it is the last.
Paul Johnston, UK Ambassador to the Political and Security Committee Brussels, commented, "after the UK leaves the EU we will focus our energies on being a strong, independent and powerful advocate of shared values and interests, working with friends and allies within Europe and beyond. We will continue to support the rules-based order, and champion issues of global concern, such as climate change, non-proliferation, free trade, and women and girls education. We look forward to building new relationships with new partners around the world and to developing our already strong and vibrant relationship with India.
When THE WEEK asked Spokesperson of UK Representation to the EU, how Brexit will affect next generation of UK, the official from Timothy Barrow's office said, “We will be the home of electric vehicles cars, even planes, powered by British made battery technology being developed right here, right now. We will have the freeports to revitalise our coastal communities, a bioscience sector liberated from anti genetic modification rules, blight-resistant crops that will feed the world — and the satellite and earth observation systems that are the envy of the world. We will be the seedbed for the most exciting and most dynamic business investments on the planet.”
The official also quoted PM Johnson from an earlier interview, “By unleashing the productive power of the whole United Kingdom not just of London and the South East but of every corner of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – we will have closed forever the productivity gap and seen to it that no town is left behind ever again; no community ever again forgotten. Our children and grandchildren will be living longer, happier, healthier, wealthier lives. Our the United Kingdom of 2050 will no longer make any contribution whatsoever to the destruction of our precious planet brought about by carbon emissions —because we will have led the world in delivering that net-zero target.”
