I am not willing to go back to debate on Brexit right now. This post is not seeking to do that. There are other issues to worry about right now. The rights and wrongs of a debate that wholly unproductively dominated UK politics for three years do not need to be revived at this moment.
But that does not mean that we do not need to talk about the process of leaving the EU. Whether or not it was wise to set a date for leaving on 31 December 2020 in January of this year is, again, not an issue worth reopening. Many things that seemed possible at that time now seem to be so remotely plausible that one wonders what world we existed in then. The shift in our paradigms has been so great that no wonder some of us feel at last a little disorientated.
And yet Brexit goes on. When almost everything else seems impossible, and despite the fact that the entire British cabinet has been wholly distracted from the Brexit process, which is one of overwhelming complexity, we are still apparently leaving on 31 December.
In itself this seems staggering: that anyone would contemplate adding a further disruptive event into the economy at a time when it will so obviously be suffering quite considerable economic stress is almost impossible to believe.
But it's worse than just the admin shock that the now inevitable hard Brexit on that date will impose. The problems Brexit will create are not peripheral in the current economic situation. They are existential.
I have already discussed the risk of food shortages in the UK this morning. Of course, they may not happen. But the risk that they might is real. And the chance that any impediment in supply chains will increase that risk is stronger still. And yet that impediment is precisely what the government intends to add into that supply chain, and in a very few months time.
The same risk does, of course, also exist in every other imperilled supply chain, of which there are now literally hundreds of thousands.
So, just as business, and our society, will need all the help it can get the government is still planning to place the biggest possible impediment it can create in the works of the UK economy.
Not only is it insanity to keep to the Brexit timetable when so much time has been lost to Covid-19. It is insanity to do so when the risk of sticking to a now hopelessly outdated plan is so staggeringly high.
The simple question has to be asked, which is why would anyone want to do this? I stress, I am not arguing for the cancellation of Brexit. I have accepted our fate, albeit that the time will come when we will need to reverse it. Instead, I am saying just defer that departure. Now is not that moment.
And what is particularly interesting is that I rather strongly suspect that MPs, the public, the media and business will all over coming months come to think this. All will say that they have more than enough risk to face without this. Johnson may implacably oppose the idea of deferral. But he already heads a government whose management of the coronavirus crisis gives considerable reason for concern as to its competence.
My suspicion is that Tory MPs, being Tory MPs and so dedicated to power, will quite rapidly sense the threat in this as the autumn develops. There will then be Johnson's 'Norway debate' moment, to draw the comparison with Chamberlain, when he might survive a vote in the Commons on this issue, but sill not survive the visit from the people in grey suits that will follow, and will have to fall on his own sword.
There is no way Johnson can remain as Prime Minister and not deliver Brexit. Johnson is a weak prime minister despite his parliamentary majority, precisely because he has shown himself unable to manage almost any aspect of the current crisis. His MPs will, by the autumn, have almost no confidence left that he will be able to manage the self-imposed blow of Brexit as well. And I suspect they will dispense with his services rather than risk the chaos, a general election and all that follows from that.
Remember, Tories are ruthless with their leaders: they lead only so long as they are useful, and then they are dispensed with. That will apply just as much to Johnson as anyone else. I think his days are numbered. And it will be Brexit that will do for him.
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The UK has already left the EU. This post should refer to the single market. If even you don’t distinguish between the two it’s hard to see how the political problems of agreeing an extension are resolved, with Brexiters ready to cry about betrayal.
I think you are splitting hairs but point taken
Samuel Johnson says:
“The UK has already left the EU.”
Well, yes sort of ….except that being in transition nothing has yet changed. So we have left and haven’t. This is truly like Schrodinger’s Brexit. 🙂
You talk about risk; But you could get knocked down crossing the road; What about the cost and risk of staying attached to a Trading block come superstate in dire financial straights; Their demands for billion a month + will probably skyrocket together with a possible demand for a bailout; they have form for this;They have proved they won’t move on their demands which impinge on our sovereignty and freedoms; They have a large deficit with us in their favor; There is no upside and a large downside;Possibly billions of our money; To me, it makes more sense to leave now and sort the problems as they happen [and they will ] The EU will behave like a spurned lover; Better in my view to leave now give our country certainty as to it’s future and rebuild as we wish; We can do anything we need to do outside of EU control to rebuild including if necessary slashing taxes; free ports and protecting or financing at risk business ;If we start rebuilding our economy and then subject it to needless uncertainty in 2 years it seems foolish in the extreme ;we also run the risk of losing trade deals and the EU passing laws and regulations that damage our country together with damage to our fish stocks from EU overfishing
Are you a Downing St bot?
Are just a sucker for misinformation?
No, not at all but I fail to see giving the EU more billions more control and the remain [rejoined crowd ] more chances to sabotage our freedom; stupid in the extreme; The vote was to leave; I have to be honest and say I think you are pro EU and I felt your article was slighted that way without looking at the risk from the unfriendly EU which is considerable
I said I accept we are going
I just said it is crazy to do it now
Please address that point
Hi Richard ,Thanks for that compliment ;As for not knowing anything about business depends on your idea of Business I;m retired now but over my working life have started built and sold three business ;One a boatbuilding contractor with a staff of 18 building 13 mt pleasure boats another A swimming pool manufacturing com selling 100 + big pools a year plus 200 spa’s sold circa late 80s
and the 3rd and final A water tank manufacture and retailer selling tanks and pumps country wide ; So I have a little bit of experience not in the UK obviously ,It’s not meant to be a bragging session just to let you know you are king only in your tiny part of the world and unfortunately you don’t actually know everything
If I was to believe you then I’d also have to believe that you clearly learned nothing of supply chain dependency as a result
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0hK1wyrrAU 🙂
The economic activity at present is very low ;The changes with no deal or a deal are many and various what better time to change the way we trade; Business can grow into the changes at a more leisurely pace while trade builds up ;Imagine the hassle if trade was going full speed and you changed overnight ;Change has to come’ it may as well be now than when we start to recover and then hit business with another hurdle in my mind take all the hits now and move on a free country able to do whatever is necessary to prosper ;Brexit was never about Trade it was all about the EU trying to steal our sovereignty ‘our manufacturing base Fishing and banking ;Britons don’t want to be controlled by Brussels [Germany & France } and never will ”’I have to admit our NZ labour govt is doing a tremendous job with covac 19 something I never thought I would admit
I have to be honest that you write like someone who has not yet slightest idea how business actually works
Keith you are the epitome of the sulky teenager shouting at his parents ‘you’re not the King of me – i can do what i want, i’m an adult now, take me seriously or I’m leaving and never coming back – YOU’ll be sorry for the rest of your short lives…’
Then storming out with tears in yoyr eyes, slamming the door and going round to a mates house to be fed by their mum and dad.
That’s exactly what image i get when you write drivel such as
“in my mind take all the hits now and move on a free country able to do whatever is necessary to prosper ;Brexit was never about Trade it was all about the EU trying to steal our sovereignty ..”
That is childish, boorish and pointless Leave crap fircefed from Cummings and the Britannia Unchained nazguls.
Or to put it in a short way – grow up!
@keith :
We’ve had four years to make sense of any of this hogwash and there has been hardly a single cogent or coherent remark from government quarters but you’ve got the whole line off pat, unchanged, unmodified and unconvincing…… a true blue Brexiteer. I hope somebody is proud of you.
Judging by the standard of Keith’s written English Andy, it won’t be the poor sod who once (I assume Keith did actually go to school spomewhere?) tried to him reading, writing and arithmetic. And as for running three businesses over the last 30 years? I have my doubts.
He’s not too impressed by me
He can communicate that….
How do you see the June 30th deadline for requesting an extension playing here? If the men in grey suits wait until the Autumn then that train will already have left.
The EU is always willing to break its own rules to get deals
If not Boris, then who……?
It will be a Tory
Hunt came second
Yes, Richard, I know. I should have made my point clearer; are any of them up to doing a really good job? I look at New Zealand and despair of this lot.
I’m not a BoJo fan; quite the opposite. But if we take it as a given that his replacement will be one of the current top dogs in the Tory party then I think I’d rather stick with him. Two reasons:
1. Although he has very little humanity, I suspect he has more that Hunt, Gove, Hancock, Sunak, Patel and (perish the thought) Raaab put together.
2. Uniquely amongst top Tories (probably all of out current top politicians) he has the ability to completely change course and get away with it. And changing course is what we need more than anything else.
George says:
“I’m not a BoJo fan; quite the opposite. But ……..”
You’ve cheered me up no end this morning, George. Cometh the hour cometh the man….? The politician who can turn on a sixpence.
You know, I have no idea what is going to happen next, I really do not.
What is emerging for me – and which is more important – is that this country seems incapable of looking after itself anymore at a time of plague.
It reminds me in its own way of what we saw happen in New Orleans under the Bush administration in the States – a reluctance to face a risk (the US Government was told time and time again that New Orleans levees were not fit for purpose and did very little about it), and when the flood took hold, the response of the inland emergency services was inadequate to say the least.
Now I hear on the radio that companies and practitioners over here are suing each other – Great! – Yeah – why not start falling out amongst ourselves like idiots – brilliant!
And why? Because the Tories are the anti-government Government – that’s why – and have no intention of helping anyone through this really in my view. The less they do, the more Government will be distrusted so that people will be herded into the arms of the next Boris, Trump, Erdogan or Hitler.
I do not share your view that Johnson is a liability just yet.
It seems to me that by Tory standards, he is doing a brilliant job. And HM Opposition are not even off the starting podium yet and are already known to be doing what they a good at – fighting amongst themselves.
“I do not share your view that Johnson is a liability just yet. It seems to me that by Tory standards, he is doing a brilliant job”. Mmmmmm. A brilliant job by Merkel standards?
Germany – total infected by covid 19 – 157,770; total deaths – 5976.
UK – total infected by covid 19 – 152,540; total deaths – 20,732
I did not mention Merkel Mike – I’m talking about the Tory party’s attitude to its own leader and their lamentable record in public service and their blindness towards suffering. The Tories like their leaders to be punitive. There is a lot of money invested in us leaving the EU – in other words making money out of disaster.
I also think that Boris’ brand persona is not to be underestimated, nor the chicanery that is available to him via the Trump/Putin axis (remember the smothered report on Russian interference in our GE?). A part of me expects to see Boris get away with it.
Now, if the average Brit is looking over the pond to Germany, then that is another matter – their management of the Covid outbreak seems to have worked well. And some polls are recording a decline in the public’s satisfaction with how Boris & Co have handled Covid-19. But at the moment it is the equivalent of a murmur. It could grow – as I said I don’t know what will happen.
I used to work for a boss who told us that all of us would lose our jobs first if anything went wrong before he lost his. Boris and his team might work the same way with his cabinet.
There is a chance that the Tory party/ERG agree to delay BREXIT of course but this is the party that has said ‘Fuck business’.
However, these days I just do not know anymore how bad a Government has to be before it gets voted out. I’m clueless. I think it also depends on the quality of the Opposition and who is controlling the perception of events . Also, this an austerity hardened country now, and I think that people’s expectations may have declined too.
My final comment is that I hope that I am wrong about this – that the Tories and Boris ARE thrown out
“It seems to me that by Tory standards, he is doing a brilliant job”. What by being MIA for 9 out of the last 12 weeks?
By shaking hands with Covid-19 positive patients – as a PR stunt – Johnson committed an irresponsible act of bravado and stupidity, not only putting himself in danger but his fiancee, his unborn child as well as Downing Street staff, colleagues and staff at the house of commons.
That is an example of a man who didn’t take the coronavirus threat seriously. English exceptionalism thinking writ large. Anyone that witless or callous, isn’t fit to be leader of anything, let alone the UK.
My assessment is that many of the back benchers have been silenced by the purges of the party. I agree they will know that the ‘no-deal Brexit’, which seems the most likely outcome next year, will be a disaster and the end of their careers in many cases. We have no elections now until after the end of the transition period so what will push them into action? I doubt it will be the newspapers and probably not even the TV commentators.
In my opinion it will be when leading business people get together and demand to be heard. Whatever they have been saying so far has not reached the headlines and the casual conversations in the street and homes.
I have no way of knowing what the state of business opinion is currently but, given the inadequacy of Rishi Sunak’s measures, I doubt if they are impressed.
You are right about the Tory Party and their leaders. Johnson was elected leader as he was perceived correctly as the one who would deliver an election victory. He is also the one the party believe can hold it together whilst the Brexit fiasco plays out either in a crash out or in a delay. The Tories would have kept him in place until Brexit had happened and then ditched him. His big problem now is will they keep him in place in the face of massive unemployment and a tanking economy where many high street businesses will not reopen. He is totally ill equipped to deal with those problems which will require some skill to manage rather than blustering sloganeering upon which his whole career has been based.
Zealots rule OK. The most telling recent incident was the political decision to withdraw from PPE and ventilator scheme run by the EU. I cannot see BoJo agreeing to an extension, I cannot see him being replaced. Completely mad I agree, but I think that is where we are.
Having read this I must say that the thought that the Conservative party is looking to rid itself anytime soon is at best ridiculous. He won the election by a mile helped by a Labour party that is disappearing on the rear mirror rapidly unless they can rid itself of the radical far left members who the British public will never vote into power. Boris and the conservatives have the next 5 years and more than likely another 5 year term as the opposition does not exist. Starmer does not come across as strong enough to fix the Labour party to make it a credible opposition and future government.
The idea that the Labour Party’s problem is the “hard left” only holds because the great British people have bee traduced by a ruthless propaganda machine aka the MSM.
John McDonnell, as shadow chancellor, and the 2019 manifesto were actually bound by a strong sense of financial rectitude.
The whole trust issue is valid, but you do not go beyond the first base, which is simply intellectually idle. A slogan a day keeps the thought process at bay.
The real problem is that we have too many voters who do not know or understand where their real economic interests lie, so when confronted, for example, with basic realities, such as MMT, they fall for the siren voices of the austerity junkies, and decide that preserving the finances of billionaires is more important than properly funding their local hospital.
Propagandised and financialized into debt beyond reason, with the hope that they never politically grow up, in order to maintain this dystopia.
What a frankly bizarre comment.
Both the Left and Right of the Labour party have failed to work together basically – is that understood? Both are equally culpable; both forgot what their day job was.
The party did not stand united behind the leader and effectively undermined him. So there was defensiveness and paranoia – what did the Right expect? The party had agreed on how to nominate the leader only for the PLP to disagree with the membership’s vote when they did not like the result and so abused their position.
The problem with Labour is that their followers are more Left and radical than the MPs and Labour HQ are put together. But what would you expect when those at Labour HQ and especially the MPs (on £80K p.a. plus expenses) are on better money that many of the people Labour claims to represent?
Talk about a party out of touch……..
The Right and the Left of Labour need to accommodate each other and do what politics is supposed to do – compromise – and create a win/win for each side. And once it has done that, it can get rid of its own exceptionalism and tribalism and then become more accommodating of other parties – The Greens for example – and be at the centre of a progressive politics so desperately needed in this country.
Anyone in the current Labour party who cannot get their head around that is nothing more than a Tory Uncle Tom and should think about joining Boris & Co – at least they’d be being honest about it for once in their miserable lives.
Bizarre? I don’t think so.
The leak of the report that “inadvertently” revealed the workings of the Labour right dilutes somewhat, your comment.
It is one thing to make compromises, but something of a totally different order to deliberately set out to prevent the other side in your own party from potentially leading a government.
I think you envision of a uniting “centre ground”, one that tries to bring together people who see and want to bring about necessary change, and those who are devoted to preserve the status quo. Both groups currently exist within the embrace of the Labour Party, and this matter is not settled, I am sorry to say,
As for Uncle Tom’s and surrogate Tories…… That really is bizarre.
I think this debate is unlikely to resolve much here
I suggest that Labour’s processes be allowed to work
Karl
It’s Alan Austin’s comment I find bizarre – not yours!! He asserts it s the Left that has caused the problem. The leaked report suggests the Right have been causing real problems in Corbyn’s Labour.
Overall though Karl I was a Labour voter who just wants the Party to stop looking inwards and squabbling – it has been six of one and half a dozen of the other. And it is not good enough.
That is my point overall. My union has employed one of the Right wing protagonists named in that report and as a result I will cancelling my membership of said union making sure they know why and joining another. I would have done the same had it been the Left implicated.
50p wager:
no extension and no deal.
Boris still in place this time next year.
madness? Yes.
I am reminded daily, that Boris and his chums are incapable of making good decisions – the top down command/control is all too reminiscent of USSR.
I don’t get
Even 50p
Do you want to add “Trump reelected” to that 50p wager, prentii? I remember when things could only get better 🙁
This reminds me of the three way “(Brexit/not Brexit) x (Boris/not Boris) x (Trump/not Trump)” that Diamond Geezer posed back in June 2016, in his post on eight alternative futures. Once of the commenters picked May as Cameron’s successor. https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2016/06/eight-alternative-futures.html But we ended up with Brexit/Boris/Trump eventually.
Boris appears to be weathering the storm so far, and lost some weight too. Let’s see how he responds to the slow-motion disaster of the ONS excess death statistics.
It must be a leftie thing to think Boris is going anywhere as far as i can see he has just the same amount of support now as ever probably more, so if your wish is for him to be removed ,well i’m sorry but you are going to be disappointed.
As for rejoining the cabal also never going to happen ,after what we have been through to leave ,you have got to be joking , and there is the question of if it is even going to survive post virus, after the” all in this together” , oh we meant everyman for himself fiasco, not many friends in Italy and Spain right now
I could be wrong
I just remember when people said Thatcher was invincible
Thatcher had North Sea Oil propping her up which sort of made her invincible – and then it started to peter out and she was less so.
She was also turning anti-European because of an inbuilt dislike of the Germans in particular which went against the grain of pro-Europeanism in our politics at the time (John Major was to find out how far she infected the party if I recall). That made her a liability as much as the poll tax.
Now the tables have turned – Boris is aligned I think with the ERG and those financiers paying heavy premiums on CDS instruments betting for an economic downturn and a payout. He is popular because he is the epitome of those we subservient Brits think should fool (sic) over us. And he has the BREXIT online methodology all at his fingers tips courtesy of Classic Dom.
Thatcher won the Falklands war, (we were very, very lucky) but the Covid war is more complex. New situation, new people; new ways to get away with things.
Having read the comments I think the most likely outcome is that we will drift towards fascism and it will be applauded by most of the media, a large section of the working class, most of the Tory Party and a majority of the Labour Party. Like a train crash in slow motion.
Of course it’s madness, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Brexit was never based on economic judgement, it was always about cultural identity, so whether we do or don’t leave the transitional arrangement will be based around the argument to do with that come December.
I think your reading of Boris Johnson’s usefulness may be incorrect. You suppose he is useful because he provides some form of good governance, or that lack of competence in dealing with a crisis will be problem for his popularity. It is possible for the British public to hold both the views that the government handled the crisis badly but also that it was not Boris’s fault, and he is still the same affable gent they voted for.
Boris’s popularity comes form very much the same place as Trump’s does. It’s not based on competence in any way, and is everything to do with him confirming people’s views about their identities within the world.
I read this article today which made me realise that actions from our politicians just aren’t very important anymore. They are symbols, not public servants in the eyes of the public. As soon as that is true “doing the right thing” has no political advantage, and doing the wrong one has no consequence. I think Dominic Cummings sees that, which is why he spends all his time trying to control the public narrative and story about Boris.
https://thecorrespondent.com/425/the-real-story-of-us-democracy-isnt-the-drama-its-the-complete-unresponsiveness-to-it/11758723625-03b827ea?pk_campaign=weekly
I rather expect that the Covid-19 disruption will be used as cover for the economic disaster of Hard Brexit. Because who can point to any jobs lost and say specifically “these jobs were lost due to the pandemic recession, while these others were lost due to Brexit”? So I suspect it’s full steam ahead, with a plausible non-Brexit scapegoat for the coming catastrophe, I think that’s the plan.
Tories keep telling us that they are doing a good job and the majority of people (unfortunately) believe them. All our economic woes from a probably no deal Brexit will be blamed on the coronavirus so no chance of an early election or change in PM.
Pilgrim raises an important point in his post at 12:13pm above: “…these days I just do not know anymore how bad a Government has to be before it gets voted out.” The Fixed Term Parliament Act effectively makes it impossible to unseat a Gov’t for another 4.5 years. The size of the Tory majority and the disunited opposition will allow the Tories to continue to rule no matter how ineptly they do so or how much actual harm they inflict on the population.
We, the population, having elected a bunch of dummies, are powerless to remove them when it becomes obvious that they are unfit to rule. It’s stating the bleedin’ obvious that the Act must be repealed at the first opportunity, but that could easily be ten or more years down the line, given the current majority, the Tories’ access to colossal funding and the disunited opposition. Raising a petition to repeal the Act in the interests of improving democracy might get enough support to force a debate in the Commons, but that majority can’t be defeated with the Act in force and without a massive (and highly unlikely) revolt among Tory MPs.
Sorry to raise the issue of the break-up of the UK in a debate about Covid19 and Brexit, but the message is clear if the devolved nations are to avert ruinous further decline and give our children and future generations a fighting chance: get out ASAP!
I would if I was them…..
Is a close trade deal with the EU really so ridiculous now? Free movement has now gone for decades. OK – there was more to it than just free movement. But it was where the real heat was.
If we end up with no vaccine then even more so is free movement of the table.
The EU will adapt I think but free movement in it’s current state has gone.
There is a single, sad answer to the two questions postulated at the top of this thread.
No time soon.
Until the spell that the population has been put under over the decade of austerity to perpetrate a hard brexit is broken, nothing much will change the trajectory.
If and when that happens it will only be a mass grassroots rebellion that would be a force that can do that. Such as the GJ’s of France or our Poll Tax rebellion. A General Strike is moot when we are already off work! So it will have to be some kind of Great March from the North – if the Red wall wakes up and smells the café.
The fact is Covid may well be magnitudes harder in the second wave, as it COINCIDES with the normal flu season – we were lucky this time with it not hitting till February. The EU already better resourced and with Germany leading the way will have sufficient EU wide protocols and resources to manage better for its 400 million citizens in a more coordinated manner than it has achieved this time. Meanwhile we will left to look on like beggars in the street looking in at a restaurant window.
Even if we build 4 real hospitals instead of 40 imaginary ones (like every testing target!) where are the trained staff going to come from?
The new laws and extrajudicial measures as well as a compliant jjuiciary will be deployed to keep us down as the stick.
The media will continue to quash any u-turn, dissatisfaction and protest, as has happened with GJ’s. They are a barely concealed extension of the Downing St communications team; Laura, Robert, Krishna.. the lot of them. The revolving door is hardly necessary now days, even as ITV News National Editor Allegra Stratton is leaving to work for Chancellor Rishi Sunak as Director of Strategic Communications at the Treasury! (He needs a gushing softfocus makeover just incase he has to step in for bozo).
I for one will be looking to Europe for any tests, medication and possible vaccine that emerges.