UK Tory contenders vow to scrap Irish border Brexit policy

Boris Johnson -Brexit - EU - Ireland
Conservative Party leadership contender Boris Johnson gestures as he speaks during a party leadership hustings in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Tuesday, July 2, 2019. Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, who are competing for the Conservative Party leadership, have both vowed to use a fiscal cushion built up by the government to soften the economic blow from a potentially disruptive Brexit. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison, Pool)

LONDON — The two contenders to be Britain’s next prime minister both say they will scrap a contentious Irish border provision that has hamstrung efforts to approve a divorce agreement with the European Union.

Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson are competing to replace Prime Minister Theresa May, who is quitting after Parliament rejected her Brexit deal. A key sticking point is a measure known as the backstop, designed to maintain an invisible border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.

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EU leaders say there can be no withdrawal agreement without it. But Brexit-backing U.K. lawmakers reject it for keeping Britain bound to the EU.

Hunt said Tuesday that “we are never going to have a deal to leave the EU with the backstop.”

Johnson said May’s withdrawal agreement “is a dead letter.”