This is a post about BoJo but I want to set the scene by linking to an item in The Guardian yesterday (HERE) from Vernon Bogdanor, a real intellectual heavyweight and professor of government at King's College London. He explains what we have known for a long time, there is no way of avoiding border controls if we come out of the EU.
But now back to BoJo. On BBC Radio yesterday he said the UK would handle the border with the Republic of Ireland using technology, explaining how as London Mayor he electronically levied the congestion charge on vehicles crossing the boundary between Camden and Westminster (HERE). He didn't seem to realise both boroughs are in the same single market and customs union and the congestion charge only covers vehicles, not their contents. He has been roundly attacked for his stupidity and rightly so.
BoJo is starting to panic about the Irish border. This item on Sky (HERE) shows how he is trying to pull two incompatible things together. He obviously understands now, or is beginning to, that the commitments already given have the capacity to scupper Brexit and he is desperately casting around for a solution. A solution that he will find is impossible. He is now trying to back pedal on keeping the border "absolutely unchanged" as he claimed in 2016. He said in a private memo to Mrs May, "Even if a hard border is reintroduced, we would expect to see 95% + of goods pass the border [without] checks" thus acknowledging there may actually have to be a hard border.
And as if trying to wash his hands of the problem he says "it is wrong to see the task as maintaining 'no border'" on the island of Ireland after Brexit - and that the Government's task will be to "stop this border becoming significantly harder".
As usual he has two positions. What he says publicly and what he says privately. He is getting his civil servants to try and come up with a plan to avoid a hard border but they make clear "[His proposal] is an FCO concept note based on discussion with other departments but is not agreed technical advice."
Having read Bogdanor's item it is absolutely certain that there must be a hard border in Ireland - and this applies whether we are in a customs union or not. We are soon to see a hard border with physical infrastructure, border guards, customs checks being described as soft or even invisible - provided you don't look at it. BoJo is going to argue that black is white.
The Radio 4 interview also had an intriguing exchange with BoJo where he said, “One day, Mishal, we will be sitting here not talking about Brexit. It is going to be fantastic.”
He is becoming bored by it all. He wants the nightmare over, but it won't be over. It will only get worse and worse.
Time is even running out for a transition deal with publication later of the draft legal text of the withdrawal and transition agreement. Barnier (HERE) says there has been little or no progress on the outstanding issues from December and time is running out for a withdrawal agreement. You can only be amazed at the sheer insouciance of the British government. It behaves as if it has the upper hand and an unlimited amount of time available when the total opposite is true. We continue to float all sorts of illusory fantasies which we know will never be accepted because the EU have told us so. Yet, when the EU put firm proposals on the table in order to make progress we kick and scream and delay things even further.
The draft legal text is bound to cause uproar but we now have no time to mess about. It's a case of take it or leave it. But we won't do either - as normal.
