The Conservative party membership is still intent on pursuing fantasy solutions to Brexit and therefore I expect Rory Stewart to be eliminated later today when the second round of voting takes place. The five remaining candidates will all then be maintaining the fiction of going to Brussels and renegotiating the Withdrawal Agreement. It now seems beyond doubt that, failing some miracle, we will get Johnson as our prime minister next month.
This will be our tragedy as well as his.
Johnson's basic pitch is that we need to 'drop' the backstop (HERE) and he really thinks, "There is a clear way that the now effectively defunct withdrawal
agreement can be disaggregated: the good bits of it can be taken out".
In Johnson's mind, as well as many ordinary Tory members, British exceptionalism is still enjoying an Indian summer. His journey towards realism has even further to go than the other candidates. The Irish PM, Leo Varadkar, a man whose patience has been tested to destruction, has said in the last few days that dropping the backstop is the same as leaving with no deal (HERE).
However, we should not forget that the backstop was not the reason Johnson resigned his post as Foreign Secretary in July last year. It couldn't have been because the details of it didn't appear until the draft agreement was published in November. His reasons for not supporting the WA go much deeper than that.
In his resignation letter (HERE) he said:
"We have postponed crucial decisions – including the preparations for
no deal, as I argued in my letter to you of last November – with the
result that we appear to be heading for a semi-Brexit, with large parts
of the economy still locked in the EU system, but with no UK control
over that system. It now seems that the opening bid of our negotiations involves
accepting that we are not actually going to be able to make our own
laws".
It might be said that it is the backstop which is 'locking' us in to the 'EU system' but he doesn't mention the Irish border or Ireland once in his letter. Paradoxically, the EU and Ireland will probably see the need for a backstop is actually increased under a Johnson administration because he wants to diverge from EU standards perhaps more than anyone. From his letter:
"It is also clear that by surrendering control over our rulebook for
goods and agrifoods (and much else besides) we will make it much more
difficult to do free trade deals. And then there is the further
impediment of having to argue for an impractical and undeliverable
customs arrangement unlike any other in existence".
Creating and controlling your own rulebook on goods and agri-foods, which by definition must be different to that of your largest and closest trading partner, is pure insanity but this is what BoJo wants to do. It will unnecessarily hobble our food, farming and manufacturing industry with two rulebooks. It's the reverse of a free trade agreement which seeks to eliminate differences over time.
Where he is right, is that surrendering control over regulation will make it more difficult to do free trade deals, but with others. NOT surrendering it will make it far more difficult to do the biggest and most important trade deal of all - with the EU.
The regulatory alignment/common rule book stuff appears in the 26 page political declaration which is not legally binding and could easily be altered (I imagine) to accommodate Johnson's declared intention of having our own unique British standards. But this only makes solving the Irish border problem even more intractable than it is now, and means the EU and Ireland will see the need for such a backstop is actually reinforced.
What he is arguing for is, in essence, the elimination of hard borders while simultaneously creating bigger regulatory barriers which require more checks and more hard borders. It makes no sense. It is still having your cake and eating it.
This is all of a piece with Johnson of course. He has been accused of making 'contradictory promises' to various factions inside the Tory party. Johnson is said to have told leading Eurosceptics in a private meeting that May’s deal was 'dead' while telling moderates there was only a very small chance of a no-deal Brexit under
his premiership. It is sleight of hand stuff - where it isn't just plain old fashioned ignorance of the detail
He has clearly not been paying attention for some years. It is not just that he says and does contradictory things. He IS a contradiction.
This is Brexit Britain in 2019. A known cheat and congenital liar, a man profoundly untrustworthy for whom dishonesty and double-dealing is a way of life is about to be elected prime minister by people who know all his many faults yet still believe he is the person to save the Conservative party.
When it all goes wrong, don't look at Johnson. Look at those who knowingly made the disaster inevitable.
