This seems to be the strategy of the new UK Government. Just this morning it has announced the UK teams will stop attending EU meetings. In the round, with Brexit, this makes sense. To the large number of people never attuned to this idea of actually leaving this has caused a very negative reaction. Even MP's are on the airwaves decrying the move.
It comes hot on the heels of the signing of the law to leave the EU on Monday; again it is symbolic more than meaningful, but it lays out the truth that Parliament has already voted for a No Deal Brexit and as such has legislated its way into a big hole of its own making.
The ideas behind these moves are simple; cause Remainia in the UK to go into meltdown and encourage it to try to topple the Government in a couple of weeks time. At the same time, allow the EU enough time to dismiss all our activities out of hand now, but with enough time to reflect on what they may do before Halloween.
If the Remainers manage to topple the Government, then it seems to me we will end up with Prime Minister Farage in 2020, the sheer affront to democracy will be to great to bear and the Remainiacs will find their victory short-lived. But Boris is betting he can beat Farage to be leader of the populists if the Tories are defenestrated by a rainbow coalition.
If they fail in their bid then the EU itself will be forced to consider how to make the best of a poor situation - the hardball negotiating will have failed and some decisions will have to be made as to how to mitigate the UK exit which will now be inevitable. Of course, the EU may remain intransigent, but politically they will bear some responsibility for that.
So both plans may work well in the medium term which is why the Government is taking what appears at first to be such a risky and divisive strategy.
Team Boris is making all the running; and to my mind nothing has happened yet in response that couldn't have been forseen by someone as sharp as Cummings
ReplyDeleteas noted before, the only vaguely smart counter-move thus far has been the warming-up of the Irish faction in Congress
the Left's race to purge the PLP before a GE has such priority for them this summer, Team Corbs is hoping they can get by with just a bit of signalling over the next few weeks
I can't help feeling we have a nuke up our sleeves vis-a-vis the Irish: something financial. If/when we play it, obviously they'd rush to Berlin (& Washington) for succour: but how many Eu-countries can Germany bail out? And they'd have a price (= Irish corp tax)
Boris will do whatever it takes to
ReplyDelete1. Further the cause of Boris
2. Assist the Conservative Party
& that's it folks.
We haven't started yet. The threat to nuke Bruxelles, Berlin, and Frankfurt probably hasn't even been hinted at.
ReplyDeleteI'm only half joking. If these fuckers start up another IRA bombing campaign then a bit of retaliation would be in order.
I think Boris is about to sell us out. WA with a to-the-wire tweaked back stop.
ReplyDeleteIt will not be 'leave the EU', worse than remaining in fact.
E-K - that will do nicely for me, it is only the WA. The whole FTA actual Brexit is to come. but stage one, exiting the political bits will have been achieved and after all the aggro there will be no vote sin going back (or option, as the EU will drop the Euro, Schengen etc as conditions).
ReplyDelete"I think Boris is about to sell us out"
ReplyDeleteIf he does that (which is not impossible, I don't think anyone trusts him much), I suppose he might get enough Parliamentary support from the traitors to keep him in power til 2022. But if he does the Tories will get crucified when the GE finally rolls round.
Tories voted in one leader to take us out of the EU who wanted to sell us out, can they afford two?
We shall see. Boris started talking tough, but now I gather he's jetting round EU capitals a la May. If the EU say there's nothing to negotiate, why is he there? (I don't mind if he's gone there to insult Maricon and Merkel to their faces in front of the cameras, but I doubt that's the plan).
Wonk on r4 floated idea that irish will be ok with time limited backstop of say 20 years.
ReplyDeleteNot great but might be possible to sell on both sides
@CU: It is not “only the WA”. It is permanent subjection to EU rules with no legally permissible exit. Do you realise what’s in it? Have you actually read the fucking horrendous thing? As Yanis Varoufakis - no friend of Brexiteers - puts it, it’s the kind of treaty a nation defeated in war is compelled to sign.
ReplyDeleteBoris and Cummings have a clear run while Parliament is not sitting and they are making good use of the time to sound out the other 27 leaders.
ReplyDeleteThe route through to Brexit will become apparent in a couple of weeks time when Parliament returns. Until then it is just the silly season. e.g nuking Paris (who can nuke back)
Oh, anonymous, do learn to read.
ReplyDeleteThe problem - as we see this morning - is going to be Macron.
ReplyDeleteIt's plain he's fed up with Brexit and is willing to risk no deal.
Whether that'll work out for him is another matter, if France takes a big enough hit the Yellow Jackets will return in force and he'll find himself pincered between Melenchon and Le Pen remorselessly crushing him.
If Brexit eventually kills the EU, it'll have been down to Macron's arrogance giving him his Moscow moment.
"the Yellow Jackets will return in force"
ReplyDeleteThey haven't gone away, you know. The contrast between media coverage of France and Hong Kong is amazing, just as the contrast between "rebel" gains in Syria ("Assad is losing, tee-hee!") and government gains ("kids are dying!") was. And France is only 22 miles away from the UK.
SW - Yes I have read it and understand it is a compromise clearly negotiated by May and Hammond who were rather keen on losing, however it is what it is...
ReplyDeleteCU is right.
ReplyDeleteBoris is what there is. All there is.
He either succeeds, right now, this year. Or Brexit will be officially over.
And continue on only as a forceful insurgency, as it did since the millennium.
If you don’t trust Boris, and don’t think he will deliver, you are probably correct. But there isn’t anyone else. There is no “ more right wing, harder Brexit”, candidate in the Tory party. All Farage’s rhetoric does, at this juncture, is to make any Brexit less likely.
If Boris fails, Farage will get his run. But it won’t carry him into Downing Street.
BQ - actually anyone - what is a "no deal" success?
ReplyDeleteI see hardline remainers framing that as no disruption to normal life at all
I see hardline brexiters framing that as just some "turbulence" over the first few months, no-one is going to suffer too much
The lack of a common understanding of what 'ok' is is rather depressing.
No deal isn’t a success.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why there will be a deal.
No deal is a success if the EU don't want to offer a deal because it would encourager les autres. If there's a deal to be had that doesn't involve subjugation, great, but is that on the table?
ReplyDeleteEconomics isn't always above politics. The EU were quite happy to shaft Greece - and it worked, in that Spain (Podemos) then knew what would happen to a 'left' administration that offended the bankers.