The EU official opted not to speak in diplomatic code. ‘There are huge gaps in the UK offer. This just isn’t a serious solution. They are putting forward proposals that simply won’t work. Talk of a deal is spin and optimism going into overdrive.’
Boundless optimism is one of Boris Johnson’s greatest assets. And after the dour, grinding pragmatism of Theresa May, a more upbeat, confident demeanour from the Prime Minister is something to be welcomed. But this morning it’s time to park the optimism and face reality.
Boundless optimism is one of Boris Johnson’s greatest assets after the dour, grinding pragmatism of Theresa May
Britain and Europe are eyeball-to- eyeball over Brexit. And the EU is not going to blink. The impact on sales of BMWs and prosecco. The hammer-blow to the economy of the Irish Republic. In the view of the Brussels panjandrums, all these are prices worth paying to maintain the integrity of the European Union.
On Thursday, Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay tried again to soften them up. If they dug in and forced the UK into a No Deal Brexit, Europe would suffer medicine shortages, agriculture would be hit hard, and so would the tourism industry, he warned. I asked the EU official what he thought of that threat. ‘Well, it certainly raised a few eyebrows,’ he said, stifling a laugh.
This is the reality of where we are now. Europe is laughing at us. Not because they are cavalier about the impact of No Deal – though some Eurocrats clearly have little concern for how many Spanish manchego producers must be sacrificed on the altar of a glorious EU super-state. But because they find it comical that we still cannot see that, when they say there will be no more major concessions to the agreement they brokered with Mrs May, they really do mean it.
Even when they’re not laughing at us, they’re publicly humiliating us, like Luxembourg PM Xavier Bettel did with his podium grandstanding on Monday.
Or issuing ultimatums of their own, as Emmanuel Macron did with Wednesday’s demand that Boris publish his Brexit plan in 12 days or else negotiations would end.
Or simply telling the unvarnished truth, as Irish Deputy PM Simon Coveney did on Friday, when he said: ‘Everyone needs a dose of reality,’ over the fiction we’re closing in on a deal.
The EU is not bluffing. And it is not folding.
However much people may have believed the spectre of a No Deal Brexit would finally force them into a major renegotiation, it is simply not going to happen.
Which leaves Boris facing a choice. He can put an end to the entire charade, call time on the negotiations and finally and unequivocally embrace a No Deal Brexit. Or he can broker a deal. But only if he – rather than the EU – chooses to blink first.
First, he would have to abandon his attempt to face down the European Union, pivot 180 degrees, and instead face down his own allies in the DUP and the ERG.
Having defied them – or stuffed their mouths with gold – he would then have to reach out to the 21 Tory MPs he unceremoniously expelled from his party, and beg them on bended knee to return and endorse his deal.
At which point he would have to hurriedly shift his attention to the other side of the political aisle, get down on both knees, and plead with 30 or so Labour MPs to abandon their own party, withstand the wrath of the fanatical Corbynites and Remainers, and endorse a Tory Brexit.
And in a final act of supplication, he would have to prostrate himself in front of the voters of the Brexit Party, implore them to ignore everything he’s been preaching about vassalage, collaboration and betrayal, abandon any hope of a ‘clean Brexit’ and line up alongside the deal he’s just cobbled together with Michel Barnier and Jean-Claude Juncker.
It’s a political fantasy. As one source close to the Tory rebels said: ‘We still really hope we can get a deal. But to get something through, Boris was always going to need to use his charms to persuade the ERG to back down.
And it’s almost too late for that now. There’s been too much tough talk thrown around.’ Dan Hodges.
