Boris Johnson is planning urgent reform to the law on leaving the EU to ensure that there can be no extension to the 31 December 2020 transition period for doing so.
Superficially this appears to be a move undertaken to suggests that he is serious about his election promises.
It may also be that he (or rather, Dominic Cummings) really does have a domestic agenda that he wants to get on with.
Some suggest that it is because he wants to engineer a Hard Brexit.
My opinion remains that it is actually something else. What he wants to do is get ‘a deal'. He does not much care what deal. All that matters is ‘a deal'. So, spending time on detail is not, in his opinion, going to make much difference to the outcome. Instead he knows three things.
The first is that he will compromise, quite heavily, to get any deal, as he did in October, whatever the consequences.
Second, he knows that the EU will offer a deal that could be done by 31 December, subject to minor concessions that they will have allowed for from the outset.
Third, he knows that the public will laud him whatever deal he gets by 31 December 2020 because none of them will pay the slightest attention to what the deal actually says.
And fourth, if that deal creates the minimum possible disruption, which any deal aligned with the EIU's demands will, then he wins the electoral bonus from appearing to deliver on the promise whilst saying none of the downsides occurred - making him the apparent genius who proved all those Remainers wrong.
Of course, I could be wrong.
But as a plan this is easily the best one he can have.
And the enforced deadline is there for a reason - and that is to say to Mark Francois & Co that they need to shut up and back his deal, because there is no other electorally attractive option available to them.
My suggestion is then that the deadline is not for EU consumption. It's wholly for domestic consumption. And what we're actually going to get is very close EU alignment come 31 December 2020.
Whether that is what is delivered afterwards will be another issue. I have my doubts there. But the ink on the paper will say we will. And it's an annoyingly good plan if it's what he's setting out to do.
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So basically, you’re saying the EU will quietly and painlessly run rings round team Johnson giving us a pretty soft Brexit which doesn’t hurt the EU and therefore won’t hurt us very much either. Sounds pretty good to me and might help me get over my disappointment for the shambles in the opposition!
“he knows that the public will laud him whatever deal he gets by 31 December 2020 because none of them will pay the slightest attention to what the deal actually says.”
I’m not at all sure that’s true. May’s confusion and parliament’s intransigence brought the nature of any deal on offer into focus and, with little effective opposition in parliament, the established media will be only too eager to offer an analysis of any deal, as will social media. There is also the ongoing uncertainty as to whether the Conservatives are truly united on this issue and how much opposition Johnson may face from within his own party. True, there is little the public can do for five years, but the effects of whatever deal is struck will likely still be fresh in the mind when the next election comes along. Whether or not there will be a revival in fortunes for the major opposing parties in that time remains to be seen.
Quite probable. The hypocritical bombastic buffoon will go for the “soft” deal. He will proclaim a great victory while in reality surrendering (i.e.surrendering in the eyes of the Faragists and ERGists) to the EU. But it will have to be approved by Parliament. Of course, he has a massive majority, and the assured loyalty of the bulk of his MPs, so he need not worry about Sir Mark Francois (and Lord Farage) as they then will be. So he will get his soft Brexit through the Commons. And most of the Brexiteer nutters in the cabinet will support him – Raab, Patel, even Reese-Mogg – because they will prefer to keep their jobs and positions of power than to return to the lonely backbench wilderness. But how will Labour and the SNP vote? Abstain? That would inevitably be seen by the Red Wall voters who defected from Labour as a massive sulk, indeed an unwillingness to acknowledge that their Corbynite sinfulness before the election. Or do they support? Or oppose? – no point – and in any case, that is not going to enchant and win back the Red Wall defecting voters. And how would the SNP vote? Of course, he does not depend on them for support, but he might just offer them a referendum if they were good and gave him their moral support. He is on to a winner. And all he then has to do is concentrate on dealing with a deteriorating economy and a yet to be disillusioned electorate and burnishing his brilliant image and proclaiming himself the greatest Prime Minister in history of the cosmos (which in truth he will be – the greatest since Theresa May)
I bet a fair few people were saying nothing to worry about in their comfortable drawing rooms in Germany in 1932. Check out page 48 of the tory manifesto, where they set out how they’re going to remove our rights to hold the government to account through the courts. And apparently, they’re on page 48 as an amusing homage to Article 48 of the Weimar German constitution, which played a key role in bringing Hitler to power. It reasons that the Government cannot be challenged as the government is the embodiment of the will of the people. Sound familiar? I guess Cummings and Bannon (an out and out white supremacist) had a proper giggle about that. You enjoy your day in complacency. Kim Tan.
I say there is ample to worry about
I was discussing one issue
Agree that after a ‘Hard’ brexit and preservation of Off-Shoring & tax havens we will be back to many aspects of EU membership- unfortunately not the Customs Union and ECJ or indeed the ECHR. We will have US investments and all the nasties. We will be turned into Singapore on Thames and various ‘Free Ports’ will be offered to these deprived communities to keep them from voting Labour in the future.
The EU will NOT take it easily as Katya Adler of the bbc reported (and was silenced for it just before the election).
———
There is one more thing…Rumours of War!
I’ll try to avoid too much hyperbole and keep it short here, this is some of what I posted as a comment on Off-G, on Andre Vltchecks latest. Link below and chat there if interested :
The City and its 5+1 eyed Empire has been forced into survival mode. From fair play and level playing field by being members of the EU; and from it’s centuries long colonialism and plunder by the emergence of the Eurasian trading and security block – now backed with the industrial might of China and the Strategic weapons development capabilities and reslience of Russia.
In short we are being prepped for war and stopping Labour was imperative.
https://off-guardian.org/2019/12/17/how-can-the-us-lecture-china-on-the-rights-of-muslims/
There is nothing in that article you linked to that suggests we are being prepped for war. Clearly the unfortunate population of NW China are at risk from a US backed insurgency but MAD still applies and an actual war between big states is a low risk.
Look around the U.K, our armed forces are the smallest they have ever been. There is no public appetite at all to support a US war on China. If it happened new left policies would not be needed. China could cause us massive damage, Johnson would be out, which is probably the most important reason it is unlikely.
We have been at war nonstop since 2001.
You think Johnson actually makes ANY decisions?
What has public opinion got to do with it with the neocon neolibs?
Millions of public opinions were against Iraq war un 2003 – what difference did it make?
A lie for a war is the same as lies to win elections.
The Empire is trying to stop the Belt and Road and EU/EAEU cooperation. Look at who is objecting to Nordstream2 and who is invested in it.
I am not saying a direct war – i am saying a proxy war.
There is much more to it but this is not the forum for it – unless Professor Murphy writes a specific piece on it or invites it.
So i won’t say anymore on it here but feel free to engage further on that other site.
All best.
From the very beginning it’s been “them and us”, people believe that they won, they believe that someone wants to take their prize away.
BJ can deliver exactly the same compromise as Labour or anyone else would deliver (short of remain) and they would see it as their prize delivered, if someone else delivered it, their prize would have been taken away from them.