I am really not sure whether I ended this weekend amused, bemused or outright concerned that Boris Johnson really is between some pretty nasty rocks and the proverbial hard place right now.
Politically his direction of travel is being cut off. Farage is back with a deeply populist position that leaves Johnson with no chance to tack further to the right. Thankfully.
At the same time there is also no way left for Johnson to make progress with key parts of the Internal Market Bill. President-elect Biden has made it clear that unless Johnson drops the clauses relating to Northern Ireland the special relationship is toast, or maybe something even more akin to those crumbs you have to clear out of a toaster every now and again.
But Johnson must also know that if he takes heed of that message then the ERG will grill him until he's charred to the point of incineratation, and there remain enough of them to make his life very difficult indeed.
Add to that the fact that public trust in Johnson's government has very clearly collapsed. The latest lockdown is being faced with both incomprehension and indifference as far as I can see, however necessary it may be. The government's own incoherence has broken the social contract on this issue.
And Brexit has yet to really happen, as most seem to be forgetting, and will be a nightmare whatever deal is agreed, because we have quite literally none of the infrastructure to make any option, barring an emergency application to extend the transition, work right now.
Johnson has always built his career on lies. More recently to say that its foundations have been in sand would simply to be too kind to it: there has been no real foundation at all. And sometime very soon that fact, with the added element of the absence of Trump to provide cover, is going to become very clear indeed.
There are always, of course, ‘events' that might help or hinder, but assuming nothing quite extraordinarily beneficial comes Johnson's way, and all the portents are to the contrary, then it is hard to see what good cards he might have in his hand right now.
His foreign policy is completely shot.
So too is his domestic policy.
As is his economic policy.
Coronavirus is out of control, and that seems to be deliberate.
Tensions in the country are rising.
Finding any upside for him is hard. Not, I stress, that I am being sympathetic when saying so. All this is of his own making. And it is of his party's too. They know the sort of man he was when choosing him.
But I look at all this and wonder how long that ruthless Tory machine will stick with such an obvious loser. It is just not their style to do so. Leaders who threaten the party are given short shrift by the Tories. And Johnson is threatening more than the party; he is threatening us all.
The question as to how long Johnson can now last has to be in the table. I continue to think it's not long. Since I acknowledge that I may not much like any alternative to him that the Tories might select that is also not wishful thinking. That is simple analysis. Johnson has created an untenable position from which there is no credible or viable escape route, bar ditching him. And that is why I cannot see him surviving.
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I heard over the weekend that House of Lords amendments to the Internal Market Bill might not be contested by the government which if true could pave the way for the bill to comply with the EU withdrawal agreement. If true it would allow the US/UK trade talks to resume. However more worryingly the President’s authority on trade negotiations is limited and I understand is facing renewal next July. Even if Biden was keen to do a deal he might find it very difficult to achieve in the time frame. There is talk of another option for the UK could be a deal with the U.S. via the Trans Pacific Partnership which the U.S. withdrew from under Trump but Biden could rejoin. The UK is applying to join this trading bloc. Hardly has the same symbolic value for the Brexiters in the Tory party and of course is unlikely to make up for lost EU trade. A rock and a hard place is a good assessment.
Hmmmm – I agree with your commentary – I mean Johnson’s un-self conscious statements about the U.S always being our ally yesterday were a masterclass in duplicity – someone laughing at themselves as they lied – I mean it was so obviously insincere.
But we all know what the REAL problem is: Who else is there?
I mean come on – seriously – what are our options?
There aren’t any as far as I can see.
The Tories have this all wrapped up like a professional wrestler may disable and defeat an opponent.
There is no opposition that I can see of. As long as that remains the case, the Tories will endure with or without Boris as the mechanics of that endurance were already there created by Osbourne (FTPA) and other bits and pieces.
I think the extremist right wing media (in which I also include the BBC)
will keep up the xenophobic racist mantra about all people and things foreign, to try and keep the the attention of the masses diverted, though I also agree that with Trump gone there is very little room to move further to the right.
The u turn on school meals is little more than a sop to the so called “red wall” MPs allowing them to bullshit their constituents that they really do give a toss.
Again I agree that there is not much room to move any further left at all
and little to be gained if he could.
As for President elect Biden and the so called “special relationship” (which does not really exist America, will always have the relationship they want special or not) It is crystal clear that America is a guarantor of the good Friday agreement and it is enshrined in international law.
Biden has never been anything other than a staunch supporter of both so no room for Johnson and his Northern Ireland botch job there and he can kiss goodbye to any trade deal too by the look of things.
The steam train of Brexit coming down the line at Johnson and his utterly inept and incompetent cabinet will have a catastrophic impact on this country and it is abundantly clear our government has neither the intelligence nor the statecraft required to deal with it.
This disaster will have deep economic and social consequences across our society I cannot see how this government will survive.
Add to all this the coronavirus pandemic, cabinet corruption, and the truly staggering incompetence of the current Tory party I think it is hard to see where the tory party could turn.
In a nutshell They are truly up shit creek without a paddle or so much as a clue what to do.
🙂
I can’t see Johnson mentioning of Obama’s Kenyan ancestry as making him hostile to the UK sitting well with Biden.
As we Scots say Johnson’s “coat is on a shoogly peg”, so will he go or will he be pushed ? The worry is who might succeed him – Gove – just as duplicitous but more intelligent ? Sunak – would the Shire Tories accept an Asian despite his wealth ? or Javid – another Asian ? Or maybe realise their error last year and go back to Hunt ?
I can only see Hunt….
I think it’s a mistake to write off Boris. The word “slippery” doesn’t cover him, and he has a Lazarus like ability to come back from the dead.
Added to that his flexible approach to the English language is modelled on Humpty Dumpty: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
There is no credible ‘leader’ within the Conservative benches because Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson removed the whip from 32 who muttered an occasional few words that were not his script, or should that be Cummings’ script? Replaced with cronies. So there is no internal leadership.
Boris, to demonstrate his common touch, would be far more be likely to say he was caught between Scylla and Charybdis
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/19/like-sailing-scylla-charybdis-says-no-10-source-pms-covid-19/
Sounds far better as a Greek drama, or maybe that should be a tragedy.
The media seems to have taken a vow of silence about the inevitable costs and disruption of even a last minute deal , let alone a no-deal one.
I ask why? One answer is that it exposes that the main policy of this government is broken. Yet when we get there, it will obvious that it was going to happen and they should have taken steps to prevent it.
It’s like a Greek tragedy. The outcome could be avoided but they chose not to.
Blame no deal on those nasty Europeans,
Blame the economy on Covid,
Blame Covid on the little people,
Blame public spending on feckless dependency culture,
Blame unemployment on immigrants,
Simples. Have I missed anything?
Perhaps a Hitlerian rant in the bunker about the people not being worthy of him?
Sir Christopher Mayer, past UK ambassador in Washington (1997-2003) has just been interviewed on BBC Radio, 5 Live. He spoke of the British Government’s current predicament with a Biden presidency with the smooth, disarming urbanity of the professional diplomat. As I understand Mayer’s argument, there is no problem for this Conservative Government with a Biden presidency, for there is nothing to see here. When, however you drill below Mayer’s seductive, crease-removing rhetoric; specifically on Ireland the slick, trenchant, problem-eliminating blandishments slowly dissipated in Mayer’s increasingly rambling, waffle-filled assurances that whatever problems arose would be worked on until they were fixed: sure, sure.
I simply look over British history in Ireland, and do no see much British wisdom there. What I see there is a long road filled with pain. More worrying, the core of Mayer’s evasive manoeuvring appeared to rely on the proposition that if there should be a problem with the Northern Ireland border arising from Brexit, this will be entirely the responsibility of the EU, which will have created this problem in order to protect the Single Market.
Let us not mince words; this proposition is political perfidy. Britain has undertaken Brexit without considering the real consequences for the precarious nature of the British constitution’s role in Ireland, which – it must not be forgotten – Britain itself created. Britain cannot just leave the EU with no attaching conditions whatsoever, as if British sovereignty can be absolute, no matter what, critically even for the British constitution itself: when it has already given absolute undertakings over the Irish border (both within Britain’s constitution and internationally) – which inevitably constrains that supposed ‘absolute’ sovereignty. What Mayer is actually suggesting, shorn of the warm words, is that after Brexit, Britain is free by mere sleight-of-hand, to pass responsibility for the Irish border, wholesale and free from all obligations, from Britain to the EU.
The EU therefore, according to the Mayer insight into British diplomacy, is required effectively to abandon the Single Market altogether, for that is the real consequence of an absolute, unconstrained Brexit. This is an outcome that just happens to be in Brexit Britain’s best geopolitical interests; the end of the Single Market, with an open border between Britain and the EU through Ireland, which would, in time no doubt erode and undermine the EU as a single, effective economic force, but with no inconvenient consequences for Britain. Brexit is a blueprint to Balkanise European trade.
Finally, it does not appear that Britain even understands itself; the underlying nature of the British State, as a long-established but nevertheless delicate coalition of nations: and we think the US has political problems?
Thanks
And much to agree with
Seems too much about Boris when we know he doesn’t bother to master(or possibly even look at) his brief. Not much attention to Cummings and his avowed intent to cause chaois which seems to be exactly what is happening. The Party might get rid of Boris but Cummings has history with Gove and others so who is going to get rid of him?