Stephen Barclay made another speech yesterday on his whistle stop tour of Europe, this time in Madrid. His speech is HERE. I assume the audience at Europa was mainly Spanish and must have found Barclay's delving into the intricacies of the Irish backstop and potential alternatives absolutely baffling. One might describe it as playing to the gallery or diplomacy with added menace.
Once again he is pleading for a deal and for EU help, for creativity and flexibility and pragmatism and compromise (on the part of the EU that is) because - and here comes the menace - he is "surprised to hear the Commission claim that the EU is fully prepared. Fully prepared for no deal is what the Commission says."
"For example, even though the UK has adopted in full the EU aquis on data, the Commission position is businesses here in Spain will be restricted in what data they can share with the UK.
"That affects not just the tourism industry, not just the 45 million flights from the UK to Spain each year, that affects businesses much more widely, and I wonder within this audience how confident it is that small and medium sized businesses across Spain are fully prepared for that sort of change.
"If delays occur at Calais – some in the UK media have suggested delays of up to two and a half days at Calais. That has a potential impact on lorries with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and raspberries, those travelling from Spain, an industry valued at around half a billion pounds a year."
"That affects not just the tourism industry, not just the 45 million flights from the UK to Spain each year, that affects businesses much more widely, and I wonder within this audience how confident it is that small and medium sized businesses across Spain are fully prepared for that sort of change.
"If delays occur at Calais – some in the UK media have suggested delays of up to two and a half days at Calais. That has a potential impact on lorries with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and raspberries, those travelling from Spain, an industry valued at around half a billion pounds a year."
This is the sort of thing a capo from a Mafia family might whisper. It's the veiled threat. What he doesn't say is that Spain will have plenty of fresh fruit and salad to eat while we are struggling to find any at all and wrestling with each other between the half-empty supermarket shelves while our children suffer from rickets.
This is sheer bravado. He knows businesses here in the UK are no better prepared anyway.
This is sheer bravado. He knows businesses here in the UK are no better prepared anyway.
Barclays speech comes as a new sense of hope is injected into the proceedings - if proceedings isn't too strong a word to describe the glacial speed of the talks - by Juncker suggesting he has no 'emotional attachment' to the Irish backstop but he called on the UK to make "concrete, operational, textual proposals" on alternatives to replace it. Johnson points to this as progress but it is no more than the EU have been saying for months.
At the same time BuzzFeed reported the UK has finally (finally!) submitted something in writing although a government spokesman later clarified:
"We have now shared in written form a series of confidential technical non-papers which reflect the ideas the UK has been putting forward."
When the EU gave us 12 days the other day to submit our proposals I don't think they had in mind a few non papers without even a complete idea, just the reflection of one. It is as if we are tentatively putting forward some vague ideas that we are not at all confident about and asking the EU for their thoughts. I suppose if the EU reject it we can deny the non-papers (whatever they are) were ever really serious anyway.
An EU diplomat described them as a 'smokescreen' that would not prevent a disorderly exit.
When the EU gave us 12 days the other day to submit our proposals I don't think they had in mind a few non papers without even a complete idea, just the reflection of one. It is as if we are tentatively putting forward some vague ideas that we are not at all confident about and asking the EU for their thoughts. I suppose if the EU reject it we can deny the non-papers (whatever they are) were ever really serious anyway.
An EU diplomat described them as a 'smokescreen' that would not prevent a disorderly exit.
Elsewhere, on the Politico website the Commission is reported to have admitted receiving the 'ideas' as a basis for technical discussion today in Brussels when Barnier and Barclay meet. Another British government spokesman said full documents won't be submitted until they're ready and not according to an "artificial deadline". It's not reported what he called October 31st if that isn't also an artificial deadline.
Personally, I cannot see any substantial changes or grounds for optimism. The two sides remain very far apart.
To confirm that, last night, on Newsnight, the always angry Christopher Montgomery – once the DUP’s Westminster chief of staff - said their position had not changed at all. Johnson is perhaps even more dependent on the DUP than Mrs May was and any separate NI only arrangement is predicated on its acceptance by the hard-line Unionist party as well as the ERG. I can easily imagine Johnson being stopped just before pen touches paper on a potential agreement, by a 'phone call from Arlene Foster or Steve Baker and we are straight back to early October 2018.
This would not be a surprise since Johnson has committed almost every other of Mrs May's mistakes, usually worse and in quick succession.
Johnson has 288 MPs without the DUP. Assuming most if not all of the ERG vote against his 'deal' he would be lucky to muster 250 votes in parliament and would need perhaps 60 Labour MPs plus some independents to support him. Is that likely? Probably not.
In any case I cannot see the legal text of a deal being agreed before the 17-18th October EU summit. To get from a few 'ideas' to a fully operational and watertight legal text in a matter of days looks virtually impossible. Both side are simply trying to avoid the blame.
The Supreme Court hearing concluded yesterday with the news that they would deliver their judgement next week. Robert Peston seems to think our side had the strongest case:
"The consensus among lawyers is that those arguing for the prosecution, Pannick and O’Neill, had the best of this argument.
"And if they did, lawyers tell me it is open and shut that the judges will take the further step of finding that Johnson exercised the royal prerogative for an improper purpose; namely to prevent MPs and Lords from exercising their most important duty and function, scrutinising the PM (the executive branch of government) and legislating."
In the next few weeks Johnson could find himself fighting on many fronts. With the EU, parliament, the law, his party, the DUP, business, The City, local authorities and just about everybody else.
Personally, I cannot see any substantial changes or grounds for optimism. The two sides remain very far apart.
To confirm that, last night, on Newsnight, the always angry Christopher Montgomery – once the DUP’s Westminster chief of staff - said their position had not changed at all. Johnson is perhaps even more dependent on the DUP than Mrs May was and any separate NI only arrangement is predicated on its acceptance by the hard-line Unionist party as well as the ERG. I can easily imagine Johnson being stopped just before pen touches paper on a potential agreement, by a 'phone call from Arlene Foster or Steve Baker and we are straight back to early October 2018.
This would not be a surprise since Johnson has committed almost every other of Mrs May's mistakes, usually worse and in quick succession.
Johnson has 288 MPs without the DUP. Assuming most if not all of the ERG vote against his 'deal' he would be lucky to muster 250 votes in parliament and would need perhaps 60 Labour MPs plus some independents to support him. Is that likely? Probably not.
In any case I cannot see the legal text of a deal being agreed before the 17-18th October EU summit. To get from a few 'ideas' to a fully operational and watertight legal text in a matter of days looks virtually impossible. Both side are simply trying to avoid the blame.
The Supreme Court hearing concluded yesterday with the news that they would deliver their judgement next week. Robert Peston seems to think our side had the strongest case:
"The consensus among lawyers is that those arguing for the prosecution, Pannick and O’Neill, had the best of this argument.
"And if they did, lawyers tell me it is open and shut that the judges will take the further step of finding that Johnson exercised the royal prerogative for an improper purpose; namely to prevent MPs and Lords from exercising their most important duty and function, scrutinising the PM (the executive branch of government) and legislating."
In the next few weeks Johnson could find himself fighting on many fronts. With the EU, parliament, the law, his party, the DUP, business, The City, local authorities and just about everybody else.
