02/10/2018
Denis Staunton, writing in the
Irish Times, notes the obvious: "Nowhere in the endless arguing about Brexit in Birmingham", he says, "is there any serious discussion of how to break the deadlock in negotiations over the Border backstop".
And that has been the truth of the matter so far â not that it comes as any surprise. We expected a lot of noise out of the conference and that's what we're getting. But just to keep us entertained, we had chancellor Philip Hammond intervene with what was described as a
blistering personal attack on the oaf Johnson.
This has been a long time coming but is a necessary corrective. Johnson has had a free pass for far too long. Hammond, though, almost makes the wait worthwhile as he reveals in an interview with the
Mail that he has repeatedly told Johnson that his "Canada-style" plan would not work. Yet, despite that, Johnson has made no serious attempt to defend it.
In Hammond's view, Johnson's main political achievement was "Boris Bikes" in his days as London Mayor and he had no grasp of detail when it came to matters of state like Brexit. He openly mocked Johnson by doing an impression of his trademark "plummy vowels and stuttering bluff manner".
Asked about Johnson's attack on Mrs May's Brexit plan as "supine" and "deranged", his response was: "Boris is a wonderful character, but he's never been a detail man".
Mimicking the Old Etonian discussing the "Canada-style" trade deal, Hammond tells of him sitting there and at the end of it he says: "yeah but, er, there must be a way, I mean, if you just, if you, erm, come on, we can do it Phil, we can do it. I know we can get there". Says Hammond, "That's it!", pointing out that there is "No rebuttal of the arguments".
Resuming impression of the oaf, Hammond parodies his response: "We just have to want it a bit more, we just have to wish a bit harder, we just have to be a bit more bullish and it will all be fine". But, observes Hammond, "it won't all be fine because we are dealing with grown-ups here and we have to deal with the real world situation we face".
The worst of it is that we've been putting up with this dismal narrative for years, and the media has been letting our politicians get away with it. but we seem to be seeing the first fruits of the changing of the guard, with Geordie Greig at the helm of the
Mail taking over from Paul Dacre. Arguably, Johnson would not have taken the same pasting from the previous editor.
It's too early to tell yet, especially as it is today that Johnson delivers his speech to a conference fringe event, but the feeling does seem to be strengthening that the former foreign minister is about to become a former leadership contender as well. He may well have shot his bolt, as the faithful rally round their leader.
The media day yesterday had started with a picture of Johnson
gambolling in a field (above), appearing to mock the prime minister after her admission that the naughtiest thing she'd ever done was run through a field of wheat.
If that briefly caught the media imagination,
The Sun maybe caught something else â the same change in mood that the
Mail has sensed.
This paper records Johnson setting out plans for a six-month extension of the Brexit talks if he becomes prime minister. He has been telling Cabinet ministers privately that the UK needs more time to prepare for a "no deal" scenario to regain the upper hand in the negotiations. And, apart from the domestic impact, he thinks that the EU-27 would agree to an extension for this purpose?
The response of one of the Cabinet ministers (unnamed) is instructive. He accuses Johnson of misjudging the mood of activists the conference, suggesting that: "Boris is self-destructing at the moment. Everything he has said is badly miscalculated, because he is a man in a desperate hurry and itâs looking over the top and desperate".
Despite that, DUP leader
Arlene Foster has praised Johnson's "positive vision" for Brexit, saying she would work with him if he became prime minister. Clearly, she hasn't received the memo.
All this, though, simply re-affirms Denis Staunton's observation that the Tory conference is looking inwards, barely lifting its horizons even for Dominic "Midair Bacon" Raab, as he told the faithful that EU needed "to get serious" if there was to be any hope of a deal being done. The UK,
he says, could be left with "no choice" but a no-deal Brexit if the EU tried to "lock us in" to a customs union.
Nevertheless, in an interview with
The Sun, Raab did state that the UK might be willing to compromise further to reach an agreement. The UK,
he says, is looking at how regulatory checks on some goods could be used as part of a solution.
That, perhaps, is just as well with commission president Jean-Claude Juncker coming out
into the open reminding us that "British planes may not be able to land in the EU if Brexit goes wrong".
This is the first time such a senior EU official has spoken directly of the consequences of a "no deal" Brexit, adding: ""I ask myself what is going to happen to the 250,000 dogs and cats who leave the European continent each year", as he pointed out that pets would have to undergo a four-day quarantine before being allowed into the EU.
Not without good cause, Juncker observed: "What I really regret in the context of Brexit is that there was no real Brexit campaign in terms of actual information in the United Kingdom". The people, he said, "are finding out now - including British ministers and ministers on the continent - how many questions it poses, all the things we need to resolve".
However, Raab is still complaining that the EU has not offered any "credible alternatives" to UK proposals, saying: âThe ball is in their courtâ. But that has the
Guardian offering one of those anonymous EU sources who says that both sides have to move if the talks were to progress. "In a way the ball is just as much in the UK's court as the EU's", he says. "We are at a point in the negotiations when neither side can say 'the ball is in your court'. If the UK doesn't pick up the ball, we will".
Something else which has emerged is a stern rebuttal of Mrs May's allegation that the EU has not explained its reasons for rejecting her Chequers plan. According to Brussels insiders, Barnier gave Raab a detailed briefing of the EU's objections, in a three-page briefing note.
Yet, things finally seem to be stirring in the undergrowth. For all that it is Mr Johnson's big day today, Mrs May seems to be preparing a rather plump rabbit to pull out of the hat, sidelining her soon-to-be erstwhile challenger. According to
The Times, she is ready to propose a "grand bargain" which would keep Britain tied to European customs rules on goods after the transition period ends in December 2020.
The UK, apparently, will also accept demands that goods entering Northern Ireland from Britain must meet European standards, with the potential for checks in the Irish Sea, paving the way for a deal on the "backstop".
Needless to say, this will have the Moggites squealing, but if Mrs May has judged the mood right, the party will be prepared to accept compromise rather than go for the hard Brexit that the "ultras" so earnestly desire.
Support for a compromise solution would marginalise Johnson, with nowhere to go but the obscurity which he so profoundly deserves. And this can't come a minute too soon. A survey from the IHS Markit and Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply purchasing managers' index
has found that the number of employees working at large firms fell for a second successive month in September.
It appears that Britain's biggest manufacturers are cutting jobs and becoming increasingly reluctant to hire amid growing uncertainty over Brexit â something that has become all too evident from a growing range of sources.
Mrs May needs to use this conference to speak to the nation, and especially to industry, in an attempt to demonstrate something that might be almost impossible to prove â that she has a grip on the Brexit negotiations. Lightweights such a Johnson might have come out to play, but the prime minister has to attend to the serious business of government.
If, at the end of it all, the only thing that we do get out of the conference is noise, she will have failed once again in her duty. But it will be some small consolation if Johnson is not the beneficiary.
