Monday 23 September 2019

CRUNCH WEEK FOR JOHNSON

It's possible to see how the next few weeks is starting to play out in the headline of last Saturday's Telegraph and recognise the extremely weak position that we are now in.  The splash was: EU Hatches plot to sink Britain's Brexit plan. The non-papers we submitted last week represent our 'plan' according to The Telegraph although the report quotes Downing Street saying they only "intended for them to be a springboard for talks."

Reading the story one can see it was the leaking of an internal EU memo late last week suggesting our proposals "fall short" of what's needed to avoid or replace the backstop that makes The Telegraph think there is a "plot" to sink Johnson's plan.  After 30 years of portraying the EU as a bogeyman they just can't help themselves.  When the EU point out the obvious flaws in our ideas, ideas that breach the treaties which bind 28 member states, it must be a conspiracy against us.

But let's just think about the idea that the EU are trying to "sink" our plan.  In about five weeks time we will leave the EU unless WE ask for an extension - as the law requires. There is no question of the EU sinking the UK leaving - if anything they are still trying to sink the notion that we can leave but carry on with frictionless trade everywhere and have an invisible border in Ireland without regulatory and tariff alignment.  The Telegraph can't bring themselves to put it this way.

Johnson and his acolytes are still pursuing the cake and eat it theory and even at this late stage they have not accepted the logical consequences of leaving the single market. The market that Johnson was said to have finally understood last week in Luxembourg. 

Peter Foster, Europe editor at The Telegraph retweeted this by Mujtaba Rahman, formerly at The Treasury and the EU Commission:
The thread explains that our non-papers effectively create a hole in the single market and this is primarily a revenue issue as well the obvious policing implications around a hard border. He says there is no EU Community interest in compromise on either point.  He also thinks Juncker is a "wily political operator. His warm words designed to make it harder for UK to walk away, and to be clear where blame lies if it does".

So, I do not believe whatever Johnson, Barclay or Raab think, there is the slightest prospect of negotiating anything seriously different to the present WA. The EU might allow the backstop to cover NI only since this was their original suggestion, but there is no other "legally operable" solution that is on the shelf and ready to go in the next few days. 

 Remember Macron and Antii Rinne, the Finnish PM gave Johnson until the end of the month (next Monday) to come up with something concrete otherwise it's over.

 If you accept my premise, the choices facing Johnson are:
  • Accept May's deal and try and force it through parliament
  • Ask for an extension
  • Break the law and take us out without a deal
On that last point, I noted this, again from Peter Foster's Twitter thread. It's a video of a senior NI civil servant spelling out the consequences of a no deal Brexit for NI:


In my opinion this would be barely thinkable if it represented a vanishingly small chance of happening by accident. For such consequences to be the deliberate result of government policy, virtually certain to happen, about which Johnson and the cabinet have been repeatedly warned and to flout the law to do it, it is not thinkable at all.  Come on!

So, effectively it's down to just two options.  Both politically toxic for Johnson but I think he will try one last desperate attempt to get May's deal through - and will fail. He may well split the party into the bargain.

The Supreme Court judgement and his is pole dancing episodes with Jennifer Arcuri may be the least of his worries.
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