London: UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid has dismissed newspaper speculation of a snap general election in June, saying that “last thing we want is an election, the people will never forgive us.”
The British government is still hoping to secure a time limit or unilateral exit mechanism for the Irish border backstop when the country leaves the European Union (EU) on March 29, he told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show.
“They want politicians to get on with the job. They have been given a very clear mandate, now it’s our job to get on with it,” the home secretary said.
The statement came when Javid was dismissing newspaper reports that Downing Street strategists were considering holding a snap general election on June 6 if UK Prime Minister Theresa May cannot get her Brexit deal through parliament before the Brexit deadline of March 29, Xinhua reported on Sunday.
Last week, members of parliament voted in favour of an amendment to examine the possibility of alternative arrangements, but it is unclear that the necessary technology exists.
Meanwhile, Javid also said that he believed that the UK would be as safe in the case of a no-deal Brexit.
He said that no-deal would be “very bad for the security of this country.”
Javid said although he wants to leave the European Union with a deal on March 29, it “makes sense to plan for all contingencies, including no-deal.”
“It is absolutely true that if we have a no-deal situation, there will be certain capabilities that we rely on for security with the EU such as databases, arrest warrants, others, that, of course, will change,” he said.
The EU has made it clear that after Brexit, Britain would no longer be part of the European arrest warrant system, which allows suspects to be extradited back to the UK.
“Keeping that in mind, we have been working on mitigants and I’m not pretending for a second through Interpol or through the Council of Europe on extradition you can have a like-for-like capability. So there will be a change in capability,” he said.
“There will be a change in capability but it’s worth putting it all in perspective,” he added.
