Selby4europe: JOHNSON'S TURN AT THE CRASH COURSE IN REALITY

Wednesday 18 September 2019

JOHNSON'S TURN AT THE CRASH COURSE IN REALITY

The Supreme Court hearing will carry on today and I have no idea if the application will succeed or not. But Johnson's premiership is hanging on several threads, this being the main one. The problem with listening to clever lawyers arguing in court is that both sides seem to have cast iron cases. Johnson hasn't helped himself by failing to provide a witness statement setting out his reasons for proroguing parliament. Presumably this was on the grounds that he will either have to lie in writing to the Supreme Court or destroy his own argument.

What I will say about the case is that I might have believed the suspension of parliament had nothing to do with Brexit if those supporting Brexit didn't also universally support prorogation, while those opposed to Brexit were the opposite. Strange that.

Away from the legal battle, Robert Peston told us what the PM's proposed 'solution' to the Irish backstop was beginning to look like. It looks fiercely complicated, a sort of Heath Robinson replacement for invisible trade that is still invisible but where everyone is inconvenienced in every way and as expensively as possible. It is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. But no matter. Peston's blog post came out at 5:30 pm.

A little over three hours later, The FT (no paywall on this article) published a report about the same topic. Johnson was said to be "promoting a common zone for agriculture and foodstuffs, a common electricity market and maintaining a common travel area"

"But UK officials are now letting it be known that Britain wants to extend discussions on how to create an “all-island” economic relationship by tackling trickier areas such as customs, value added tax, industrial goods and the remit of the European Court of Justice."

But the FT report also carried this little vignette which I had a bit of a laugh at:

"EU officials also described a lunch in Luxembourg on Monday between Mr Johnson, Michel Barnier, and Mr Juncker as the moment the 'penny dropped' for the prime minister on the complexities involved in replacing the Irish backstop.

"Mr Johnson was told by his counterparts that the UK’s proposals on allowing Northern Ireland to stick to common EU rules on food and livestock was not a sufficient replacement for the Irish backstop as it would still require customs checks on other types of goods.

" 'It was clear that Boris was on a learning curve,' said an EU official. Another described Mr Johnson as 'slumping' into his seat over the course of lunch as the reality of the tight negotiating schedule dawned."

This might be described as the Brussels' 'slump' otherwise known as a crash course in reality. David Davis had it first, but so did Geoffrey Cox, Dominic Raab and everybody who ever went there. This is how it works. The PM listens to somebody (one of the aforementioned list and plenty of others) who says that the last person who went to Brussels didn't shout loud enough. Let me go and I'll 'sort them foreigners out'.

After going to the EU and getting a hard, brutal lesson they then return with the same message as all the other previous emmissaries. The PM doesn't believe what she or he is being told (Johnson even less than May, May less than Cameron, etc) and the process is vicariously repeated until the PM himself or herself goes and gets the 'slump' first hand.

When they return another potential PM begins to secretly tell the Tory party that the current PM hasn't been tough enough.......... and off we go again. There may be another round to come. My money is on Mark Francois.

Most salesmen know how this works. You tell your sales manager an order cannot be obtained above a certain price. He doesn't believe you and goes himself and usually comes back with an even lower price than the one you could have got. I have done this myself - and from both sides of the managerial line!

Elsewhere, the government yellowhammer documents are getting a bit of a going over. Paragraph 3 of the government's 'Reasonable Worst Case planning assumptions says:

"Analysis to date has suggested a low risk of significant sustained queues outside of Kent which have a high volume of EU traffic"

At the time this appeared at odds with the truth. No doubt people were reassured. But, if there were to be delays at ports for EU bound goods surely they should be expected at all ports, not just Dover?

Well, so it has proved.

In court this is what's known as lying by omission. It turns out, as revealed by the FT, that the reason there won't be 'significant, sustained queues' is that two thirds or more of trucks going to the EU will be stopped before they even reach the port.

A source told the Financial Times that queues to get through customs in ports outside of Kent, would ‘only be OK, if you assume that traffic flows will be significantly reduced before vehicles get to the port’. Around two thirds of the vehicles in Liverpool, Holyhead and Portsmouth could be turned away for being ‘non-compliant’.

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/09/17/thousands-lorries-turned-away-ports-across-country-no-deal-brexit-10760956/?ito=cbshare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

"The documents, dated August – the same month as the Yellowhammer dossier – suggest around two-thirds of vehicles arriving at ports in Liverpool, Holyhead and Portsmouth with the hope of crossing the border could be deemed “non-compliant"

Portsmouth City Council has accused the government of 'lying' to them, thus joining a very long queue themselves behind The Queen, The Tory party, the people, Johnson's former employers, his ex-wife and so on.

"According to the FT, Portsmouth would only remain manageable because so many vehicles would be turned away, with a source adding: ‘Yellowhammer didn’t give us the full picture… one could say it was seriously misleading.' "

It makes you wonder how much more is to come.

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Wednesday 18 September 2019

JOHNSON'S TURN AT THE CRASH COURSE IN REALITY