Johnson pitches take-it-or-leave-it Brexit plan

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson turned in a revised Brexit proposal on Wednesday with a warning his country would walk away without a deal if the European Union rejected it. With an Oct. 31 deadline looming, Johnson’s offer seeks to address the major sticking point of how the border will operate between EU-member Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K. He proposed keeping Northern Ireland within a regulatory EU zone for food, agriculture, and industrial products until 2025.

Is this the final version? Probably not. EU leaders previously rejected any time constraints on the so-called Irish backstop. Even if the two sides agreed to this proposal, everyone would have to come back to the negotiating table to reargue the issue before the clock ran out in 2025.

Dig deeper: Read my report in World Tour on the historic political and religious conflict that fueled the Brexit stalemate.