Yesterday I posted chunks of the speech Sir Ivan Rogers gave at Glasgow University recently because I thought it was excellent stuff. His words are often ignored but I note several news outlets quote him directly. However, The Spectator's James Kirkup takes issue with part of it. Not the parts dealing with the difficulty of getting a trade deal or the consequences of leaving without one. No, he accepts all of that. Kirkup's problem is the assertion that Johnson's manifesto commitment to not extend the transition period cannot be easily circumvented.
Ivan Rogers dismisses the idea of an extended transition because he thinks the right-wing of the Tory party won't let Johnson do it, preferring instead to crash out at the end of 2020 without a deal. Kirkup thinks otherwise. The essence of his argument is two fold. Both involve the acceptance that Johnson is an untrustworthy liar.
First, he thinks if Johnson wins the election with a clear majority he will not be beholding to the ERG or anybody else and the fact he made a manifesto commitment not to extend will mean nothing if he thinks an extension is needed. Johnson will simply pivot and extend the transition period by a year or two. That's the party taken care of, with the ERG taking a turn under the bus.
Secondly, Kirkup believes the public will readily accept a delay, arguing that Rogers doesn't understand public opinion. Because, he says, "it was relatively easy for Johnson to repackage a worse variant of Theresa May’s deal as a negotiating triumph".
"Rogers is right about the process but wrong about the politics. Actually, doing that Brexit deal – in reality, a British retreat from the ground May captured – was a much bigger risk for Johnson, since it involved breaking a very clear promise not to extend membership beyond 31 October. Remember ‘dead in a ditch’?"
See? He accepts Johnson's deal was a backward step presented as a victory and in spite of all that dying in ditch stuff, the public was perfectly happy about it. So happy they will have voted for him in an election - if indeed they do on October 31st. I am sorry to say there is some cynical truth in this.
This all turns on Johnson's character doesn't it? He is a known liar, ergo everybody expects him to lie and to do the opposite of what he has publicly committed to.
Johnson's 'incontinent mendacity' is, according to Kirkup, a positive asset to the Tory party. Again, there is some truth here. Expectations on Johnson are low anyway, half the population (or more) still don't know what Brexit means but are happy to vote for a charlatan either because he's a bit of a laugh or isn't Jeremy Corbyn. This is how Kirkup ends his article:
"This year, voters and the Conservative Party have allowed Boris Johnson to retreat over Brexit and break his promises over Brexit. In the scenario where he is re-elected next month, they will reward and thank him for doing so, confirming that neither of them really cared all that much about the fine details. If such a thing comes to pass, he will have much more scope to break more such promises than the Rogers analysis suggests."
More accurately, it would be truer to say 'neither of them really cared all that much about the fine details' - AT THE MOMENT. Sooner or later the details will matter.
The problems will come later. It's OK to think you are the only one who can read Johnson's innermost thoughts and that despite all he says he will actually do what you personally want - no deal Brexit, record sums pumped into the NHS, growth, prosperity, etc - but when it becomes clear it wasn't your fellow voters he was fooling it was YOU, the Tory party will be toast.
The Guardian point to one 'detail' concerning the car industry. A no deal Brexit at the end of 2020, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, could add £3.2bn a year to costs in Britain, equivalent to 90% of the industry’s research and development budget. The SMMT warned that the cumulative cost by 2024 would be £42.7bn and that thousands of jobs would be at a risk without a Brexit deal. The sector employs 168,000 people in Britain, paying typically 21% more than the UK average wage.
Note The Guardian only quote what is I think, the direct employment figure. When supply chains are included the total is around 800,000. The 'detail' might include your own job and if and when that happens the people may not be as relaxed or forgiving as Kirkup thinks.
