For weeks the European Union has com-plained that, even as the October 31st deadline for Britain to leave drew nearer, Boris Johnson's new government was failing to offer clear proposals to amend Theresa May's failed Brexit deal. All Mr Johnson would say was that the hated backstop, an arrangement to avert a hard border in Ireland by keeping the United Kingdom in a customs union, had to go. This week, after a tub-thumping party conference speech in Manchester under the slogan "Get Brexit done", Mr Johnson at last put forward his plan. Yet despite his labelling it a "fair and reasonable compromise", it got a cool reception from the eu, which sees it as a breach of promises, not the basis for a new deal.
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