<p class="title">Britain's newly installed Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds his first cabinet meeting on Thursday faced with the burning challenge of resolving the three-year Brexit crisis in three months.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The former London mayor took office Wednesday and swept out more than half the ministers who served Theresa May in the difficult closing months of her premiership.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson appointed former Deutsche Bank trader Sajid Javid as finance minister and Brexit hardliner Dominic Raab as foreign secretary and named Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of an arch-Brexiteer faction of Conservatives, as leader of parliament's lower House of Commons.</p>.<p class="bodytext">He installed other loyalists in place of cabinet members who backed May's efforts to ram through an unpopular European divorce deal.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson delivered a characteristically optimistic speech Wednesday in which he vowed to steer Britain "out of the EU on October 31- no ifs or buts".</p>.<p class="bodytext">It is a big promise that threatens to backfire and spell a premature end to Johnson's lifelong dream if he fails to deliver.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson argues that his threat of a chaotic "no-deal" divorce will force EU leaders to relent and give Britain better terms that would let it pursue trade deals with powers like China and the United States.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Brexit backers in parliament had accused May of ignoring voters' wishes by promising to keep the UK closely tied to EU economic rules if necessary to preserve a free-flowing border between EU member Ireland and Britain's Northern Ireland.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson's solution for the frontier revolves around proposals that have been repeatedly rejected as either unworkable or insufficient by both EU and Irish leaders.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"I look forward to meeting you to discuss -- in detail -- our cooperation," European Council president Donald Tusk told Johnson in a brief congratulatory note.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar -- his heavily trade-dependent nation standing to lose most from a messy EU-UK split -- was even more blunt.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Any suggestion that there can be a whole new deal and negotiated in weeks or months is totally not in the real world," he said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson will have the backing of his party but not the nation in his first days on the job.</p>.<p class="bodytext">He beat the now-former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt by a two-to-one margin in a vote held by fewer than 160,000 paying members of the ruling Conservatives.</p>.<p class="bodytext">But a YouGov survey Wednesday found his approval rating in Britain as a whole at just 31 per cent.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn challenged Johnson to call an election that could offer him the mandate of the nation as a whole.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson has signalled his preference not to hold one before he can deliver Brexit.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Even his biggest critics in London and Brussels have been willing to give Johnson a chance to try his own luck at resolving the Brexit mess.</p>.<p class="bodytext">But his problems further abroad are more immediate -- and just as challenging.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Iran's seizure last Friday of a British-flagged tanker in the Gulf thrusts Johnson in the middle of the Islamic republic's escalating standoff with US President Donald Trump.</p>.<p class="bodytext">And Trump's bid to contain China's global clout has forced Britain into an uncomfortable choice over what technology to use in its now-delayed rollout of the next-generation 5G data network.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson boasts a friendship with Trump that his doubters fear will make Britain beholden to the mercurial White House chief's unpredictable foreign policies.</p>.<p class="bodytext">His supporters, however, say good relations with Trump will help the prospects of an early trade deal with the US after Brexit.</p>
<p class="title">Britain's newly installed Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds his first cabinet meeting on Thursday faced with the burning challenge of resolving the three-year Brexit crisis in three months.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The former London mayor took office Wednesday and swept out more than half the ministers who served Theresa May in the difficult closing months of her premiership.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson appointed former Deutsche Bank trader Sajid Javid as finance minister and Brexit hardliner Dominic Raab as foreign secretary and named Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of an arch-Brexiteer faction of Conservatives, as leader of parliament's lower House of Commons.</p>.<p class="bodytext">He installed other loyalists in place of cabinet members who backed May's efforts to ram through an unpopular European divorce deal.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson delivered a characteristically optimistic speech Wednesday in which he vowed to steer Britain "out of the EU on October 31- no ifs or buts".</p>.<p class="bodytext">It is a big promise that threatens to backfire and spell a premature end to Johnson's lifelong dream if he fails to deliver.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson argues that his threat of a chaotic "no-deal" divorce will force EU leaders to relent and give Britain better terms that would let it pursue trade deals with powers like China and the United States.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Brexit backers in parliament had accused May of ignoring voters' wishes by promising to keep the UK closely tied to EU economic rules if necessary to preserve a free-flowing border between EU member Ireland and Britain's Northern Ireland.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson's solution for the frontier revolves around proposals that have been repeatedly rejected as either unworkable or insufficient by both EU and Irish leaders.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"I look forward to meeting you to discuss -- in detail -- our cooperation," European Council president Donald Tusk told Johnson in a brief congratulatory note.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar -- his heavily trade-dependent nation standing to lose most from a messy EU-UK split -- was even more blunt.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Any suggestion that there can be a whole new deal and negotiated in weeks or months is totally not in the real world," he said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson will have the backing of his party but not the nation in his first days on the job.</p>.<p class="bodytext">He beat the now-former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt by a two-to-one margin in a vote held by fewer than 160,000 paying members of the ruling Conservatives.</p>.<p class="bodytext">But a YouGov survey Wednesday found his approval rating in Britain as a whole at just 31 per cent.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn challenged Johnson to call an election that could offer him the mandate of the nation as a whole.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson has signalled his preference not to hold one before he can deliver Brexit.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Even his biggest critics in London and Brussels have been willing to give Johnson a chance to try his own luck at resolving the Brexit mess.</p>.<p class="bodytext">But his problems further abroad are more immediate -- and just as challenging.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Iran's seizure last Friday of a British-flagged tanker in the Gulf thrusts Johnson in the middle of the Islamic republic's escalating standoff with US President Donald Trump.</p>.<p class="bodytext">And Trump's bid to contain China's global clout has forced Britain into an uncomfortable choice over what technology to use in its now-delayed rollout of the next-generation 5G data network.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Johnson boasts a friendship with Trump that his doubters fear will make Britain beholden to the mercurial White House chief's unpredictable foreign policies.</p>.<p class="bodytext">His supporters, however, say good relations with Trump will help the prospects of an early trade deal with the US after Brexit.</p>