In all my wonderings about what Boris Johnson will do when he becomes prime minister, until very recently I hadn’t considered the soft Brexit option at all. I sort of ruled it out, leading to a very narrow set of options for Johnson on Brexit. I will admit that this possibility was opened up to me by a Tory friend of mine, who feels this could be the road BoJo travels.
“But won’t the ERG object in the strongest possible terms?” I asked him.
“They won’t even know it’s a soft Brexit,” he said.
Admittedly, I had to concede that such a thing was possible. Johnson could probably use the Jedi mind trick on Mark Francois and get away with it. This is the same bunch that didn’t even understand what the backstop was for almost a year. Yet there are still many obstacles.
One is the backstop itself. It would still be there, unless Johnson committed to rolling transition periods and then sold this to his parliamentary party as something that wouldn’t take that long to negotiate (which, given we’re talking about an off the shelf option, is possible). It involves Freedom of Movement being maintained – but as my Tory friend pointed out, he can sell a version of this to everyone where it looks like he has managed to get some concessions from the EU. “We now have the freedom to demand that people have a job within three months or they are deported! Everyone from the EU27 coming here to work needs to register first if they want to stay!” Of course, Johnson doesn’t need to mention we already had the power to do this and just never bothered. We’d have to submit to the EFTA court, but Johnson could sell this is as “not the ECJ, is it?” I guess.
As to whether or not Johnson has the bottle to front this out – of course he does, this is his one superpower as a politician, unbridled hubris. Who knows, perhaps this is what Johnson has up his sleeve. Would be interesting to see him try. Anyhow, I don’t see any other way of him getting Brexit over the line other than what I’ve just described. It’s soft Brexit or no Brexit, and only BoJo could ever possibly deliver soft Brexit due to the insane political capital he wields, at least for now.
1. Please, please refrain form using terms of endearment such as ‘BoJo’.
2. Where did the EFTA court come into it? That would imply joining EFTA, which is another set of negotiations and then the EFTA court that even Switzerland does not recognise. The UK would more than double the court’s operations and the EFTA members are not exactly keen to be lorded over by the UK.
Looking at the parliamentary arithmetic and the political dynamics, it all points to a general election as soon as possible. Johnson would hope to rely on a honeymoon period and some sort of detente with Farage. An election would be cover for a further delayed Brexit. It would still be a big gamble, but there is a lack of alternatives.
I don’t think any leavers would object to joining EFTA — Daniel Hannan has been pushing that since before the referendum. The only issue is the customs union, AKA the backstop, and again, that would be fine as long as it either had an expiry date, or a clause whereby the UK can unilaterally end it. It’s that exit clause which the EU has so far proven unwilling to agree to, and which has caused all the problems.
It’s hard to see what sleight-of-hand even Boris could use to disguise that; either there is a way out of the backstop or there isn’t, clear as day, and people will be looking to Geoffery Cox to tell them which it is and he has already shown he is unwilling to bend to pressure and dissemble. ‘Rolling transition periods’ won’t cut it unless there’s the ability for the UK to unilaterally stop the rollover at the end of one of the periods even if no permanent agreement has been reached; but if the UK can do that then the EU won’t agree to it, so we’re back in exactly the same situation as before.
Could a general election motion really get the required two-thirds majority?
Nick
When will people wake up
Bj does not give a shit about brexit
This was a vehicle to ride to get him as quick as possible to pm
He had to damage cameron first after his election win with majority in 15
Cameron would have retired him
So he took the contrary view of leave
A cynical trick that help the aged tory membership will hand him what he only values power
Once he gets to be pm dont be surprised he rats on his leave base
But he doesn’t just want to become PM — he wants to stay PM too.
And to do that, he has to deliver leaving the EU: he can’t expect to reverse-ferret and not immediately have to fight a general election, which he will lose.
Wrong
He wants to experience being pm
That’s it
Then return to being a playboy
That’s possible, I suppose, but I rather doubt he really wants to leave the job with the all-time historical record of being the only Prime Minister less successful than Theresa May.
I don’t want Boris to be Prime Minister; the man’s a flagrant libertine. My preferred candidate was knocked out in an earlier round. I’m just saying, if you think Boris is acting cynically in order to gain power (which I think he is), then the same cynicism, in order to keep power, will require him to deliver on leaving the EU.
And frankly if he does that and then quits immediately I will be over the moon.
I think “cynicism” here = something called “politics”. Just saying.
Whichever, the point is that politics doesn’t stop when you’ve ‘won’. You still have to keep the people you made the promises to happy, because those who made you can also break you.
Even the harshest dictators can’t just do whatever they want — they have to keep at least the generals happy.
Indeed they do.
The penny is beginning to drop that the future of the Conservative & Unionist party depends on Brexit in 2019. And the Labour party will also incur collateral damage to its core vote – and I don’t mean voters in Islington and Oxbridge – if we don’t Brexit on cue.
WC fields said there is a sucker born every minute
You are being played sunshine
Soft Brexit sounds good to me.