I should not be surprised by anything Boris Johnson does. But I am. Trumplike, it seems he has total disregard. This contempt for the commitments made by a previous government would be contemptible. But he is now showing himself willing to ignore the legal agreements his own government has negotiated.
This come from this morning's Guardian:
Boris Johnson is drawing up legislation that will override the Brexit withdrawal agreement on Northern Ireland, a move that threatens the collapse of crunch talks which the prime minister has said must be completed within five weeks.
Johnson will put an ultimatum to negotiators this week, saying the UK and Europe must agree a post-Brexit trade deal by 15 October or Britain will walk away for good.
But progress on the already fragile talks will be threatened by plans revealed on Sunday for the UK government to publish a controversial section of the internal market bill on Wednesday that will intentionally try to unpick parts of the withdrawal agreement signed in January. It will include elements of the special arrangements for Northern Ireland that are legally binding.
There is almost no possible favourable interpretation of this plan to renege on what has already been agreed by Johnson's own government.
And let's also be clear who this has been agreed with.
It's not just been agreed with the EU, although that, of course, is the case.
It' also been agreed by parliament. It is the law that is being unwound here. And that law was only passed in January.
And at the same time, that parliamentary agreement is the embodiment of the so-called ‘oven-ready' Brexit that was the basis for the 2019 election campaign, which Johnson won because he claimed that the Brexit deal was done. So it is quite reasonable to claim that this arrangement was agreed with the people of the UK.
But Johnson never showed much sign of understanding what he had agreed, most especially on Northern Ireland, where he continually claimed that he had not created a border when he had very clearly done so. He was continually told that he was wrong, and now at the very last minute, having appreciated that he is, Johnson is reneging on all he said.
There is no-one incapable of appraising his behaviour on this issue if this report turns out to be true (and I have little doubt that it will do so). We all know that we have to negotiate deals to get through life. Most of them will not have the significance of this one, but every one of them has implicit within it our commitment to fulfil the promise that we have made. And we are, rightly, appraised on the basis of our willingness to fulfil that commitment by those with whom we negotiated.
It is not by chance that those who honour their commitments are trusted in life, and are honoured and respected, on the basis of which they usually prosper in the long run, even if that means that they sometimes suffer short term disadvantage as a result of a deal made in error.
It is also not by chance that those who break their word are considered not just dishonourable, but simply untrustworthy. It takes little time for relationships of all sorts to be terminated when that becomes apparent. Without trust there is no basis for dealing with anyone.
And what Johnson is proving himself to be is utterly untrustworthy.
And this is not without consequence. It should shatter the faith of anyone in Johnson for good. And when I say anyone, I mean from the Conservative Party onwards.
But much more significant is the national and international consequence. Apart from the fact that the people of the UK now know that they have a government led by a person whose word is worthless, internationally this has massive repercussions.
The deal on Northern Ireland, which is at the core of the arrangement that is to be broken, is the embodiment of the continuing commitment to the Good Friday Agreement, on which peace was built there.
No one can doubt that the Good Friday Agreement was an extraordinary achievement that has had a lasting and massively beneficial impact. But that, apparently, is inconsequential to Johnson, as is the fate of those in Northern Ireland who might suffer as a result.
But gone too is the commitment to simply honour an international, legally binding agreement signed by Johnson only months ago because it is now treated as irrelevant.
And gone too will be in faith in the MPs of a Party who could vote for a commitment in January and reverse it later the same year if they do, as I expect, honour the whip that will be imposed on them and vote for this breach of every element of trust into law.
What we now very clearly have is a government that cannot be trusted. Not only will it not keep to its word once given; what is also very apparent is that it will enter into agreements in bad faith with no intention of ever honouring them, which is the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from Johnson's refusal to ever accept the only possible interpretation of the agreements on Northern Ireland that he signed and had endorsed by parliament.
This brings us to a new low in UK history. We have been ruled by incompetent people before now and fools have risen to high office. But I do seriously wonder when it was that the supposed greatest characteristic of the English, that they would keep their word, was ever quite so abused.
I suppose we should have expected this. When a major political party chose to be led by a man who was known to have lied and cheated throughout his career, who was known to have ignored all concepts of fidelity in his relationships, and who has a reputation for simply not putting in the hours so that he might understand the issues that he is supposedly meant to decide upon, then this was, I admit, foreseeable. But that does not change the fact that it is profoundly shocking.
This is a bad day. It is a thing badly done, as Jane Austen might have put it. The price to be paid will be substantial. And there is no happy ending to this one. Johnson is leading the UK into a wilderness from which, for England at least, there is no obvious exit at present.
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Biased political blogger desperately tries to find new alarmist descriptions of actions of the head of the party he dislikes.
We’ll hold the front page.
The front pages ar5e covering this
Rightly so
You’ve written a long, vitriolic post on something which is a total non-event.
The legally binding parts of the transition deal are valid until either a trade deal is signed, a no deal result is declared of negotiations or 31st Dec 2020. If the trade talks are declared a failure by the deadines the EU are setting, then the UK is free to do what it wants – and will need legislation to replace the transition agreement. Which the government are putting in place now – democratically – should the situation arise.
The non-binding parts are, as the name implies, non-binding.
D you just wake up every morning trying to find something you can stand on some supposed moral high ground and attack the government on?
The UK is not free to ‘do what it wants’
The plan is to ignore the Good Friday Agreement
You think that ignoring legally binding international agreements is permitted?
If so, think again
Really? What does the GFA say then?
Because it is an Anglo-Irish agreement, and it actually says that NI is part of the UK. Not part of Ireland. So a hard border is allowed between NI and the rest of Ireland – but not within the UK itself. It was Europe trying to defend it’s single market which tried to force the Irish sea customs border, which the UK accepted as a temporary solution to ease the passage of a UK-EU trade deal.
But if there is no trade deal the UK is not forced to maintain the Irish sea customs border. The UK has said it will also not put up a hard border between NI and Ireland so at that point it is entirely up to Ireland and the EU.
So yes, if there is no trade deal, the UK can do whatever it wants regarding the Irish Sea customs border, not least because it isn’t mentioned in the GFA AT ALL.
Check your facts next time before you start spouting your rubbish.
I suggest you defer, as I do, to those who know a great deal more about this issue and know that it has arisen precisely because of the GFA
Your anger might be better directed at those seeking to undermine the Union – and they are based at No.10
Thank you, Josh for providing a timely, and salient reminder. A reminder that it isn’t just because of Boris Johnson alone that it really is time, now urgent; for Scotland to leave this increasingly disreputable Union. You really are most welcome to whatever is left.
I agree this is another milestone in the current journey towards a failed state, with the international view that such a country has gone “rogue”. The economic consequences will be severe. Already Nissan has announced the delay of models at Sunderland.
Sadly, we can be sure that Conservative MP’s will vote for an illegal action, though loudly proclaiming their devotion to law and order.
I have just heard the British agriculture minister on radio 4 say that a no deal would be a good outcome and when asked if that would mean tariffs of 40% on British export of beef he agreed – but it would still be a good outcome as we would have regained our sovereignty !
So the government does not care if hundred of British farmers go out of business – it is beyond belief that this insanity may prevail – and it seems we are powerless to stop it.
This is quite simply disaster capitalism – the workings of contemporary financial sector that has now become UK social and economic policy for the foreseeable future.
Create a crisis – initiate change via the crisis Trojan horse.
We have to accept that the Tories we have are fanatics. As bad as any Soviet or Nazi version of a fanatic from human history.
Everything that happens is about opportunity – opportunity enabled by being in power.
I have just heard George Eustace the British agriculture minister on radio 4 say that a no deal would still be a good outcome – even if tariffs of 40% are imposed on British beef exports as we would have regained our sovereignty.
So this government does not care if British farmers go out of business, it is unbelievable folly and it seems we are powerless to stop it.
One way of looking at this latest manfestation of Mr Johnson’s breast beating bellowing bullying buffoonism, is that he is unintentionally set on course for a U-turn.
This was virtually inevitable. It follows from Brexit, but at a much deeper level than is generally understood; and which leads to another virtually inevitable consequence of neoliberal, Brexiter Unionism; it means the end of all the UK Unions. Why do I say this?
The Union and Brexit are one; the core of both rests on a belief in the absolute power of the Westminster Parliament. It is the same reason the Treaty of Union of 1707 has been rolled-over or traduced so often, and with smug impunity: the absolutism of Parliament. It was Dicey who articulated the real meaning of Parliamentary absolutism, when he wrote this decisive statement on the nature of Parliament’s absolute power:
“It is like all sovereignty at bottom, nothing else but unlimited power; and unlike some other forms of sovereignty, can at once be put in force by the ordinary means of the law”.
It is the deepest irony that Dicey wrote this in a paper rejecting Irish Home Rule in 1887. What we are faced with is an ineradicable, and long established, specifically English constitutional principle which makes all free, consensual Unions, sooner or later, totally impossible.
Lest anyone remains in doubt what Dicey meant by “unlimited power”, here is his immediately preceding sentence to the one quoted in the comment above:
““Thus freedom has in England been found compatible with crises of danger with an energy of action generally supposed to be peculiar to despotism. The source of strength is, in fact, in each case the same. The sovereignty of Parliament is like the sovereignty of the Czar.”
That is the essence of Parliamentary sovereignty; despotism that will not tolerate any check on Britain’s unlimited power. A shrunken post-Imperial Britain with nothing better to do than use its unlimited power over everything it can command, this is no place for the other, and much smaller member countries in this essentially despotic Union to remain: in reality in the hands of a tin-pot despot.
The only hope is that honourable Conservative MPs (if such beings exist) will not support this reneging of international law. If there are 41 of them who are honest, we can be saved. My MP is the minister of Justice. I will be writing to him to uphold the law which he is a custodian of, outlining the facts about the Good Friday agreement which are crucial as you point out for continuing peace in Ireland.
What do Johnson and Trump have in common? I would argue very poor parenting and consequently a deep subconscious desire for revenge which makes them destroyers and wreckers not negotiators and reconcilers.
Well at least George Eustice is up to speed – he has finally realised that a lorry load of items from Tesco in Wales is going to be an administrative inconvenience with 200+ customs declarations to ‘throw in the bin’ as it trundles its way to N Ireland.
What really concerns me is that we will have a no-deal Brexit and have thoroughly pi##ed off the people we need to cooperate with. That’s another 10-20 years of hostility to come our way.
I expect that Boris will ‘Get Brexit Done’ by Christmas and be out of No. 10 by January – and those in real power will have achieved their goal.
European leaders have known that Johnson is fundamentally dishonest for years. All the bare faced lies he has come out with about the European Union over the years. Everything that has happened post Brexit and during the campaign. I heard a French official say as much on French TV when he was made foreign secretary. ‘What, that liar…’ Dishonesty is fatal to any negotiation, especially combined with the puerile chest beating and willy waving that we are seeing from Frost and co.
They will be dealing with him and his government on that basis and I have no doubt that they have their contingency plans in place already to handle no deal, which now seems the most likely outcome.
Only when a much reduced UK, devastated economically and socially and probably broken up politically, comes back to its senses will it be allowed to crawl back to the negotiating table, as a second rate nation.
This has international consiquences. How can any country be confident that the UK will keep any agreements.
So the Conservative government is professing to enter into good faith negotiations with the EU on future trade terms. It expects the EU to “compromise” because the UK is being entirely reasonable in its demands as a sovereign nation. What negotiator would bother discussing any terms with the UK if the likelihood is that any agreement will simply be reneged upon. Any agreement relating to a level playing field would be disregarded by a Johnson lead government. There can be no ongoing trust between the UK and the EU. Johnson has signalled to his Moasist ERG chums that he will deliver the no deal Brexit that they have clamoured for. Why the pretense of negotiation continues astonishes me.
Time for the EU to call Johnson’s bluff. Suspension of UK/EU trade except for certain life essential goods and services.
Surely we are going to end up with a World Beating No Trade Deal? What’s not to like?
It is disappointing that some contributors to this discussion chose to make as hominem attacks on the blog author rather than addressing his essential point he articulates of the diplomatic damage prime minister Johnson is deliberately perpetrating, rendering the U.K. as a rogue state that plays fast and loose with legally binding international agreements. He will face the leader of the opposition in Prime minister’s questions on Wednesday. Keir Starmer, a top lawyer, is forensically immersed in the detail of Brexit treaties having hitherto held the shadow Brexit portfolio, so has read (and re- read) and understands the small print: Johnson will himself rely on bluster, displacement activity, diversionary proclamations and Dishonesty- his favourite currency- to try to wheedle his way out of being cornered and eviscerated politically. It is up to the hitherto ineffectual Speaker to require Johnson to answer questions, not rhetorically pose his own. It will be an interesting political exchange. We can only hope hope Johnson further digs his own political grave.
Mr Lowry,
Your point that the PM has turned PMQs into the PM asking the questions is well made. You are right, this pure spoiling tactic of turning the event upside down has to be curbed; simply because the tactic is merely serving to illuminate the fact that the House of Commons is wholly failing to achieve its prime objective – holding the Government to account. This failing, flailing Bumbling Boris comedy turn is, however not just the desperate refuge of a hapless windbag in a blue funk (well, maybe it is that too); but it is in reality the essential survival strategy of Neoliberal Conservatism. It is the only string in their political bow. Every disaster is not only a triumph of Conservatism, but it is both a triumph for Conservatives, and the fault of the Opposition even though they are not in power, but somehow are held to be responsible anyway, or it is the responsibility of the EU, or both (helped by the Daily Mail and most of the media in all forms, regiments of gutter-trolls, and furtively financed ‘think-tanks’). Conservatives are annoyed because they are not allowed to write the rules in their own sole interets for trading with a Union of which they are no longer members. The Conservatives wish the public to believe they are in office, but somehow not in power; “not me guv”.
Josh says: “You’ve written a long, vitriolic post on something which is a total non-event.” This non-event has now caused Sir Jonathan Jones, the head of the UK government legal department to quit.
Which will be taken as evidence by Josh that he is right
After all, Jonathan Jones was just another dedicated obstruction to progress, don’t you know?
And yes, I am being very sarcastic but without humour
They think like that
This is bizarre. Brandon Lewis has agreed in Parliament that the proposed bill will “break international law”. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54073836
It is one thing the UK to abrogate a treaty, but entirely another thing for the UK to deliberately breach its international treaty obligations.
As I said on Twitter:
The modern state exists to create and uphold national and international law. If it chooses to break the law then in effect it declares itself to be null and void. It’s not just acting ultra vires its powers. It’s effectively ceased to have purpose or function. It is illegitimate