The Northern Ireland Assembly has now joined the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales in demanding an extension to the transition period. The list of trade bodies that have also called for an extension is so long that I won't even bother listing them. It includes the hauliers and freight forwarders who would have to deal with the massive increase in paperwork and subsequent delays at border crossing points. We are now getting to the stage where just about the only people who are intent on crashing out are in the cabinet.
Mujtaba Rahman, MD for Europe at Eurasia Group, a political risk research firm has a piece in The Guardian which suggests hard liners, backed by Cummings, are intent on sneaking a no-deal Brexit through under cover of the pandemic, hoping that the terrible costs will be hidden in the greater costs associated with covid-19.
I must admit I don't buy it. Leaving without a deal would be a disaster economically and politically. Sam Lowe, a trade specialist,speaking at the launch of the SMF report on Monday told the webinar attendees that Brexit and coronavirus will affect different sectors and will be impossible to disguise.
I think a tight group inside government know that we cannot leave without a deal and are basically trying to gaslight people here and in Brussels into believing that we can and will, unless we get what we want. I also think the EU know they are in the stronger position and although the tactic plays well in England, which voted to leave by the biggest margin, it won't have any impact in the EU27/
Rahman thinks because Merkel is at the head of the EU Council's rotating presidency she will be loathe to let us go without a deal and perhaps she will be sympathetic, knowing the cost to German industry, but even he says Germany will not accept a deal at any cost.
We have undertaken almost no solid preparations for new infrastructure at points of entry. Companies have not been bombarded with details of how things will change on January 1st (or 2nd since New Years Day is a holiday of course). None are ready for the "seismic" changes to come. Essentially, there has been no 'transition' period at all, something Mrs May asked for and Johnson endorsed. We still don't know what we will be transitioning to.
It is quite possible that Johnson and Cummings think if we don't ask for an extension by the end of the month it will be further proof that we are indeed mad enough to go off the cliff edge and that some legal trick will allow the two sides to produce an extension by other means sometime later in the year. This is a big gamble. Last month a former Director General of the EU’s legal services department, Jean Claude Piris warned that there is no possible mechanism to get an extension outside the Withdrawal Agreement and it must be done before the end of this month.
As his housemaster at Eton noted, Boris Johnson doesn't believe the normal rules apply to him because he has spent his entire life breaking them. This is probably why Cummings is still in a job. Johnson literally believes there is one rule for us and another for him.
And I think he will probably be right and Piris will be wrong.
Extending the transition is really a no-brainer. An extension would be a safety net and would not necessarily be needed if you thought a deal is possible. Johnson is baulking at paying into EU coffers and they might offer us a discount to soften the blow.
Because the consequences are so serious. the EU will find a way of giving us another six months or a year. This is Johnson's gamble and he will almost certainly win - but will it make any difference to the outcome? No. The EU will still demand and get the LPF and good access to British fishing grounds.
The problem for the government, and this is made worse by their chronic mismanagement of the pandemic, giving us the worst figures in Europe even after we had the example of Italy to see how serious it all was, they have been warned by so many senior politicians and businessmen that they cannot claim afterwards that nobody knew.
For the rest of us and those who come afterwards, the problem will be that just like the NI protocol, Johnson will agree to something at the last minute which will be a dog's breakfast of a deal.
Mishandling one disaster is usually enough for any government. Doing it twice in succession is political suicide.
There is still a lot of climbing down to do.
