Video of Boris Johnson promising we won't still be talking about Brexit in 2020 goes viral

With the days running out for a deal with the EU to be struck, Brexit has started to dominate the headlines once again.

Boris Johnson and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen met in Brussels and agreed that a decision on the future of the negotiations will be taken by the end of the weekend.

The issue has now become as high on the government’s agenda as the coronavirus pandemic – but a video of the PM dismissing claims that Brexit would still be constantly spoken about in 2020 has resurfaced.

In the video, which was filmed during the general election campaign in 2019, Bloomberg reporter Joe Mayes asks Johnson: “When a Brit voter turns to you in the middle of 2020 and says, ‘Mr Johnson, you said that Brexit would be done so why do I keep hearing about it on the TV, radio, reading about it in the newspapers and the negotiations with the EU…prime minister you said it would be done.’

“What would you say to that voter?”

Johnson, whose general election slogan was ‘Get Brexit Done’, replies: “I don't think that such a person will put that question in that way because I think actually what will happen is it will be done.”

The clip has now gone viral, with many mocking the prime minister for his comments:

With the prospect of a no-deal outcome, Brussels has stepped up its preparations and held out the prospect of emergency agreements aimed at keeping planes flying and lorries crossing to the Continent.

One of the contingency measures proposed by von der Leyen is for EU fishing boats to continue to enjoy access to UK waters during 2021, an area which has been one of the main sticking points in the trade negotiations.

Penny Mordaunt, a minister in the Cabinet Office, on Thursday said the UK would continue negotiating until the last.

Answering an urgent question in the Commons, she said: “We are going to do everything we can to secure a deal.

“We will carry on negotiating in talks until there is no hope of that happening, but at the moment there is hope of that happening, even though things do appear gloomy.”

Negotiations have faltered on fishing rights, the level playing field – measures aimed at preventing the UK undercutting the EU on standards and state subsidies – and the way that any deal would be governed.

Watch: What’s at stake if no deal is reached between UK and EU?