US NEWS & WORLD REPORT: Pressure Builds to Postpone Brexit Talks Because of Coronavirus

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“It’ll just be a matter of choreography,” says Robert Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester, “but it does seem pretty likely.”Given the upheaval caused by the shuttering of much of Britain to contain the virus, focusing on Brexit now would almost certainly anger a lot of voters, including many who are pro-Brexit, he says. “You would have to be a pretty hardcore Brexiter to say this isn’t a good enough reason to delay, the worst pandemic in 100 years.”“The mechanics are also difficult,” Ford says, because key people, particularly those who work in the Treasury, are already overwhelmed trying to cope with a disease that has brought the U.K. and much of the rest of the world to standstill, threatens to overload the National Health Service and may kill tens to hundreds of thousands of Britons.