Brexit – UK will leave the EU by October 31 Michael Gove says

Brexit – Michael Gove has insisted the UK will leave the EU by October 31, despite Boris Johnson writing to the EU to ask for a Brexit extension.

Asked if he could guarantee that the UK would leave the EU by Halloween, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said: “Yes, that’s our determined policy.” 

He told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “We know that the EU want us to leave, we know that we have a deal that allows us to leave.”

“We are going to leave by October 31st. We have the means and the ability to do so and people who – yesterday we had some people who voted for delay, voted explicitly to try to frustrate this process and to drag it out.

“I think actually the mood in the country is clear and the Prime Minister’s determination is absolute and I am with him in this, we must leave by October 31st.”

Boris Johnson sent the letter – unsigned – after a major setback in the Commons to his Brexit strategy.

But the request was accompanied by a second letter, signed by the PM, saying he believed a delay would be a mistake.

Mr Gove told Sky News the government still had “the means and ability” to leave on 31 October.

The minister, who as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is in charge of no-deal planning, said “the prime minister’s determination is absolute” and the government’s “determined policy” was to meet that deadline.

READ ALSO – Defamation of Character by Unfair Victimization

Asked if the letter to the EU requesting an extension would be withdrawn in the coming days if Parliament backs the Government’s Brexit deal, Michael Gove said: “Yes.

“If we vote to leave, we get the legislation through, then there is no extension – October 31 is within sight.”

It comes as Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show that he believes the Government can get Boris Johnson’s deal through Parliament. 

He said: “We seem to have the numbers in the House of Commons. A lot of people say ‘get this done and move on’.”

Source – https://www.standard.co.uk/