I've always thought we would get a deal but I am beginning to worry that we might not. After Johnson and Von Der Leyen spoke yesterday for a good hour apparently, the EU Commission president made a short statement in which I thought she seemed strained and downbeat. The reason I always believed we would reach an agreement is that I assumed the government had a majority of rational people with an instinct for survival and some who had sympathy with the communities that would be most impacted by no deal.
But after yesterday, where Johnson seems to have doubled down on sovereignty, I am starting to have a few doubts.
Negotiators are set to start again in Brussels later today and Johnson and von der Leyen will speak again on Monday - but not until the evening. What the negotiators will discuss over the next two days I have no idea. Von der Leyen did not look as though Johnson had given any indication he understood the mess he was in.
I am not sure the great vacillator can make a decision and is happy to let the clock run down. He doesn't seem to understand the damage a no-deal Brexit would do, or if he does to not care about it. The damage will not be limited to the economy either. The Tories are going to suffer, too. The 'natural party of government' seems to have completely lost its mind. The Telegraph's Christopher Hope tweets a link to an article about the ERG being 100 per cent behind the PM:
BREAKING Eurosceptic Conservatives are 100 per cent behind the PM.The European Research Group has issued statement to tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph pledging "the fullest confidence in David Frost and the British negotiating team", adding: "We have nothing to fear from freedom.”— Christopher Hope📝 (@christopherhope) December 5, 2020
David Gauke, the former MP and cabinet minister, has an interesting take on the party in Conservative Home, saying it's morphing into a party of protest. This bit is good, I think:
"There are certain attributes necessary for a party to acquire and retain a reputation as natural party of government. Of course, it has to obtain power. But it must also demonstrate and value administrative competence; it must be able to live in the world as it is, not as it would like it to be; it must be willing to take tough decisions on the basis of a realistic understanding of the consequences; it must recognise that what brings immediate popularity does not always translate into long term electoral success; it must apply its principles in a manner that appreciates the practical implications in changing circumstances. Fundamentally, it should be a party that feels much more comfortable – in Tony Blair’s phrase – with the politics of power, not the politics of protest."
The Tories are making the mistake of believing the British people are ideologues when all they want is simple competence. A few, no doubt, think they are willing to sacrifice everything for sovereignty or some notion of it, when the vast majority just want decently paid work, a holiday once or twice a year and a country in which they can bring their kids up safely and with good prospects.
I still think on balance a deal will be done, but I admit it's looking bleak at the moment. The ERG are the ones most likely to be disappointed and if they aren't, and we do exit without a deal it will be a gift to Kier Starmer.
The are no good options for the PM. He has brought his party and the country to the edge of the precipice and one or the other will go over in the next month or so.
I have worked hard since the referendum to make up for my lack of effort before the vote, not because I personally will be affected (and I believe that to be true of almost every pro-European I've met) but to avoid the country being humiliated and to save those people in factories and offices up and down this land who will be badly impacted. Many of them will have voted to leave having been misled by a lot of snake-oil salesman led by Johnson and Gove. It is the need to see the guilty men punished in the court of public opinion that drives me on.
If we do leave without a deal, I don't believe Johnson will last till Easter. The disruption that is inevitable even with a deal will turn into absolute chaos and will bring him down. You can't hide food shortages from the population for very long. I don't think anyone will starve but we won't be eating our normal diet for a few weeks.
But to give you an idea of the depth to which the party has sunk, this recent clip of Andrew Bridgen, shows the intellectual limitations of our MPs:
WTF? @ABridgen: “… if we went to tariffs, we could reimburse out of the tariffs we receive from the European Union, all our exporters in full and still pocket about £12-14 billion a year. That’s not necessarily the worst deal in the world.” #Brexit #ToryClowns #BrexitChaos …1/2 pic.twitter.com/RJnbwUQoAa
— Andy Squibb (@SquibbmeisterUK) December 5, 2020
He actually thinks the UK will "receive" tariffs from the EU. It may be true in some cases an EU exporter will levy a tariff on goods imported into this country and even collect that tariff and pay it to HMRC. But before shipment, the invoice will show the ex works price, delivery charges and tariffs - and the UK customer will pay it. Bridgen does not seem to get it.
Neither does another Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski who also tweeted some time ago:
Media refuse to outline positive advantages of WTO deal with EU. With massive £80 billion trade deficit every year, under such conditions we would receive far more in tariffs than we pay out, whilst recalibrating trade to non EU countries over longer term @Telegraph #Brexit
— Daniel Kawczynski (@DKShrewsbury) October 23, 2020
The tariffs are no more than a tax on the consumer in the importing country to protect domestic suppliers and deter sales. If it's so good one wonders why tax is such anathema to the Conservative party?
Perhaps it's better for Britain to break with the EU in a cataclysmic way. By mid January talks would have to begin again and this time there would be no clock we won't be talking about the damage as a matter of theory but as a fact.
