The talks between the UK and the EU are headed for certain breakdown this week. The Guardian revealed last night the extent of the differences between the two sides which are numerous and fundamental. In fact one can only be surprised, shocked even, that a British government thought the proposals could ever replace the backstop. When Nicky Morgan and Greg Hands worked on the Alternative Arrangements Commission they were at least attempting to replicate the effects of the backstop. Johnson's new 'proposals' don't even try.
It is a laughably shoddy piece of work and rejection by the EU is almost certainly the only possible outcome - one that may have been intended anyway.
More terrifying is what appears to be the government's 'strategy' which comes from a lengthy text message sent to James Forsyth at The Spectator. I assume it was from Mr D Cummings and it seems to anticipate the EU's rejection and kick off the diplomatic blame game - which as you might have guessed involves almost everybody in the whole Brexit mess except the Tory party, Cummings himself, Johnson and the government.
Varadkar, Barnier, Theresa May, Phillip Hammond (I know!!), the Benn Act, parliament, the people who lost the referendum (all 16 million presumably) and various unnamed EU countries all come in for some stick.
After rejection, the government does not intend to negotiate further and thus is what is proposed (my emphases):
“So, if talks go nowhere this week, the next phase will require us to set out our view on the Surrender Act. The Act imposes narrow duties. Our legal advice is clear that we can do all sorts of things to scupper delay which for obvious reasons we aren’t going into details about. Different lawyers see the “frustration principle” very differently especially on a case like this where there is no precedent for primary legislation directing how the PM conducts international discussions.
“We will make clear privately and publicly that countries which oppose delay will go the front of the queue for future cooperation — cooperation on things both within and outside EU competences. Those who support delay will go to the bottom of the queue. [This source also made clear that defence and security cooperation will inevitably be affected if the EU tries to keep Britain in against the will of its government] Supporting delay will be seen by this government as hostile interference in domestic politics, and over half of the public will agree with us."
The insane plan is to use the livelihoods, and possible the lives, of ordinary people across the country as hostages to get their way to a free trade deal with the EU but without the backstop or a physical border in Ireland. They want to divide the EU into unfriendly (France?) and friendly (Hungary?) nations with which they will cooperate afterwards and to threaten the whole of Europe with the withdrawal of defence and security measures.
This will not be well received in Brussels or Westminster and may well precipitate the fall of Johnson's administration - in fact it MUST do so. He has shown he is not fit to govern anything.
The EU must be tearing their hair out. What they have been demanding for weeks, ever since Johnson was inflicted on us, is a workable and legally operable text to replace the backstop. I can't recall the number of time Barnier has said this. Johnson has travelled round European capitals and I assume they told him the same thing.
What has emerged are some rough ideas.
Last Friday, before we learned of the full extent of the problems dividing the two sides a Commission spokeswoman said "further work is needed – but that work needs to be done by the United Kingdom and not the other way around."
On Monday, a No 10 spokesman is reported by The Guardian as saying:
“We are ready to have discussions at pace. For that to happen, the EU needs to engage fully with the proposals we have put forward,” the spokesman said. “The PM believes that we have set out a fair and sensible compromise, and we are now looking to the EU to match the compromises that the UK has made.”
It is clear that we were expecting to negotiate something based on Johnson's new 'plan'. We have not come up with a 'legally operable' alternative text, just a few totally impractical and unworkable ideas - and in some cases no ideas at all (the EU complain there is no plan of how to handle cross-border VAT for example). Johnson now wants the EU to take the rough shape and chisel it into something that does exactly what the backstop does but without all the things we don't like. The Guardian report:
"EU sources scoffed at claims coming out of Downing Street that a 'counter-offer' could be expected from Brussels in the coming days. 'It is the UK that wants to replace the backstop – and that is our solution,' said one senior EU diplomat."
Attention must now turn to Westminster because that is where the next stage in this train crash will play out. An article on Politics Home suggests Johnson is trying to ride two horses with his mantra about obeying the law but still leaving on October 31st without a deal. They think he must fall off one of them shortly.
To add to the the rising sense of mayhem, the IFS have suggested this morning that even with a relatively benign Brexit, annual government borrowing would rise to £100 billion a year. Don't forget this is to save the £10 billion a year in EU payments.
What MPs can and will do to bring some sort of order will also be fascinating since talks broke up yesterday between opposition party leaders without agreement.
I do not believe we should be looking to the EU for compromise or help. The answer to Brexit lies here in this country but it will not be easy and the track ahead is getting more perilous by the day.
