You know I'm almost beginning to feel sorry for Boris Johnson (don't worry I did say almost). It was all going so well wasn't it until the end of January? He had a six week honeymoon and from them on we have had wall-to-wall bad news and as bad as it is, things are only going to get worse. It is as if he has been brought to his senses, after fifty five years of larking about, by a good hard dose of reality. Nothing could have prepared him for this year - what we might call his anus horribilis (I know the spelling is wrong but it does seem apt doesn't it?).
The latest disaster to strike - on the morning of another clash with Starmer on the floor of house - is in the Tweet from Peter Foster:
The NHS self-built #coronavirus tracing app isn’t going very well. Not that anyone could have see that coming... 🤔 and @BorisJohnson is cross about it, report @SarahNev @helenwarrell @Laura_K_Hughes https://t.co/RZTciBBMQ3 pic.twitter.com/tbSrREXNDV— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) June 9, 2020
Johnson seems to have the Midas touch in reverse. Basically everything he touches turns into base metal even if it was gold to start with.
This comes as Downing Street was forced to U-turn on schools and announce that plans for primary schools to reopen had been dropped. It all adds to the appearance of bad policy being made on the fly. Presumably the genius Cummings was doing something else?
Yesterday Penny Mordaunt told MPs in the House and out of it that there would be no extension to the transition, apparently saying it would be "crazy" to do so. Theresa Villiers, the former NI Secretary who couldn't see the Irish Sea border coming even though people were pointing it out to her Janet and John style back in 2016, told the IfG by webinar:
“I just don’t see that the UK government is going to just shift in any substantive way from what is put on the table already,”
Both of these over-promoted individuals are going to look even more foolish than they normally do by the end of the year.
The Irish Times report Mordaunt's comments that the government is pressing the EU to speed-up the talks. These are the talks where the EU had to wait months to share our sketchy ideas for a deal with member states and we have set a ridiculous deadline that everybody thinks is impossible. I don't think the EU27 will be too impressed with now being asked to work overtime and at the double.
She also said that the government is once again stepping up preparations for leaving without a trade deal. This is in fact the least likely possibility as our old friend David Henig explained in a tweet:
Boxing ourselves in to either accept a deal predominantly shaped by the EU or go for no deal. Because proper trade talks take longer than a few months. https://t.co/1Tz8QoLNyu— David Henig (@DavidHenigUK) June 9, 2020
As Henig points out, if the government objective is business certainty neither a bad UK-EU deal or no deal will provide that at the end of the year. Negotiations on various topics will continue either way and so will the uncertainty.
He says "Politicians and most media seem no closer to understanding the implications of an EU deal or no-deal. Even when Nissan say their plant 'unsustainable' without a deal it isn't taken seriously. The GB-Northern Ireland checks. GB citizaens unable to work in the EU. And so on..."
"And no-deal with EU and deal with US will mean UK farmers doubly disadvantaged, UK manufacturing struggling with EU tariffs but getting little new US access, and probably a relative shift to services in the UK. Who if anyone knows of this / is asking? Or trying to influence...?"
"Still a game to too many MPs. Suspect if there is no-deal after Jan 1 they will blame the EU for unreasonably imposing tariffs / customs and regulatory checks / work restrictions etc"
He concludes that the choice facing us is an EU-shaped deal or no deal at all. This was always going to be the case. Why would a bloc of 27 nations, acting in concert, accept a deal written and shaped by a single former member who left and is one seventh the economic size? Ask yourself.
John Peet at The Economist after listening to the exchanges in parliament yesterday tweeted:
Depressing set of Tory MPs questioning Penny Mordaunt on EU talks. All blamed the EU, none suggested Britain might need to move, no hint that giving negotiations more time may be sensible. This looks like no-deal to me: I only hope Tories are happy when they get it.— John Peet (@JohnGPeet) June 9, 2020
I am afraid that government has been hi-jacked by a gang of idiots - elected I'm sorry to say by an even bigger gang of idiots - and until the nation comes to its senses, we will continue to be in a mess. I'm heartened by Johnson's slump in popularity and Starmer's rise. Perhaps we are beginning to see the first flickering of doubt in the minds of the electorate - let us hope it is.
As for blaming the EU when it all goes wrong, I'm sure this will happen and that a lot of the far-right brigade will believe it. Our job will be to point out that this is exactly what we predicted. If we "took back control" so did the EU27. We could have stopped the other EU27 members doing anything what was not in our interests but only if we were a member.
If you give that up, you didn't take back control at all, you gave it up.
