Brexit plays havoc with people’s memories. There are those of us who could have sworn that most leavers promised the country that a deal to exit the EU would be the easiest thing in the world. It would be the most amicable separation in history. The EU would be as pleased to see us go as we would be to see the back of them. We Brits would get everything of which we had always dreamed. Or maybe not. It now turns out that nobody ever said anything like that. It was all a figment of our imaginations.
Even so. This Monday was meant to be the day. The day when the final piece of the Northern Ireland Brexit jigsaw fell into place. Rishi Sunak had had a cunning plan. There could be a green lane for goods coming from Great Britain whose final destination was Northern Ireland.
A red lane for goods bound for the republic. And a fudge to arbitrate on any disputes. A panel made up of UK and EU officials that we could pretend had nothing to do with EU law. Even though it obviously did. What else did people expect? The EU wasn’t about to become British any time soon.
It was all so ridiculously simple that Rish! couldn’t quite understand why no one had thought of it before. What’s more, he had phoned Ursula von der Leyen and the EU Brexit negotiator Maroš Šefčovič and they had also given it the thumbs up. They too had got fed up with the endless negotiations that went nowhere, and were ready to cut a deal. At the very least, they told themselves, the UK now seemed to be taking some kind of responsibility for sorting out the mess into which it had got itself. A brief glimmer of synaptic contact in Westminster.
Or maybe not. The mere hint that a deal was in the offing was enough to send all the Brexiters into a meltdown. Even those who had never been demanding that the UK leave the single market and the customs union in the first place. The whole point of their existence was to say no to everything. Even if they were presented with a deal that offered them everything they had always wanted, they would still find a way to say no. To do otherwise would be to show weakness. Besides, it was all probably a plot to lure them in. The first rule of the DUP is that if the EU is willing to agree to something then it must be a trap.
Boris Johnson had been the first out of the blocks at the weekend with some well-placed leaks to the media. He hadn’t been a happy bunny. Then, any deal that made Sunak look vaguely competent had to be trashed.
So he had taken time off from the search for his nine-bedroom – he still dreamed of being able to have nearly all his children to stay – “forever” Cotswold home. (Forever, as in a couple of years at most.) He still hadn’t worked out who was going to pay for it. Certainly not him. He didn’t take £250,000 for a shoddy speech to fork out for his own accommodation. Something would turn up.
Johnson’s intervention had been short and sweet. Any deal that Sunak made had to be dodgy. Even though he had been a leaver from the start, Rish! was a natural born sellout. He wasn’t to be trusted. There was no such thing as a fair compromise when it came to Brexit. Only unfair compromises would do.
So what was needed was to make sure his bill to disapply any part of the Northern Ireland protocol that he and the idiotic Frosty the Snowman had negotiated was passed. Even though it was stuck in the House of Lords with no hope of it being voted through, it had to be passed. Because it was his. And Boris must get what Boris wants. It was a necessary backstop. We couldn’t have the EU thinking we had ever intended to keep our word. The protocol had only been a bit of nonsense to get Brexit through parliament. No one had ever meant it to be taken seriously.
“Boris’s remarks are not totally unhelpful,” Penny Mordaunt had said. Johnson had been rather taken aback at that. He had certainly intended them to be totally unhelpful. Why give Rish! an even break? It would never have occurred to him to do something from which Sunak could possibly benefit. Turn the screw. Brexit had destroyed greater men – and women – than Sunak. Now let him take the consequences.
Others had been almost as unhelpful. Deliberately obstructive? That will do nicely. Take Simon Clarke and the ever-moronic Bernard Jenkin. They had suggested the protocol bill be held in reserve. To terrify the EU. Because the threat of the UK passing a law that enabled it to break international law was keeping the EU awake at night. Or not. Bernie went still further. The UK should forget about the border in the Irish Sea and reinstate one between Belfast and Dublin. Hey, why not rip up the Good Friday agreement? Or maybe the EU just wouldn’t bother to check if factories in the north were manufacturing goods to EU standards. Pigs. Flying.
Rish! acknowledged defeat. Of course he could get his deal through parliament. But only with Labour votes. Sure it would be the right thing to do. Right for the country. But since when was he that interested in doing what was best for the country? Party first. Always. So there was nothing for it. He sent James Cleverly back to Šefčovič with instructions to agree nothing for the time being. We’d waited seven years for a deal on Northern Ireland. What was a wee bit longer?
