By now everybody knows: Johnson has sent his Brexit Plan to the EU, with a covering letter to M Juncker. That, in normal times, should have been that – but we’re not living in normal times. These are the times of betrayal, of plots and court cases and if you think the plotting is over, you better think again.
This is what happened yesterday: Johnson held his key speech at the Tory Party conference where he presented this breakthrough deal which some unhelpful minion had already leaked to the DT the night before. The government, helpfully, has made the text of both the letter and the paper available online, you can read them here.
As the Johnson plan went properly public it was immediately declared unworkable by some opposition MPs who said it was a ‘tactic’ by Johnson to ‘force’ the EU to reject it and for us therefore to be able to leave with No Deal.
There’s also a rumour that allegedly No 10 told Brussels that, if they don’t agree, Johnson would not attend that EU Commission meeting later this month. You can read all about yesterday’s events in this article which is not paywalled, and you might like to read the brief assessment by the unmissable Sir John Redwood in his Diary today.
Reactions here at home by Brexiteer politicians were cautiously optimistic. It seems Johnson might be able to get this Deal through Parliament should the EU agree to it:
“The prime minister looks increasingly likely to get his deal through the Commons after the Democratic Unionist Party, hardline Tory Eurosceptics and some Labour MPs indicated that they were prepared to back it.” (link, paywalled)
There is of course one big hairy fly in this ointment beside Brussels, and that is Dublin:
“It means that Ireland is now the main roadblock to solving the problem of the border. Mr Johnson made it clear in his calls to European leaders that unless they accepted his proposal in full or began intense talks by Monday, the chance of a deal would have gone. He is expected to make a statement to the Commons on Thursday, then fly to Berlin on Friday for talks with Mrs Merkel.” (paywalled link)
And what do our “EUropean friends and allies” think of this Johnson paper? Not a lot, apparently, according to ‘sources’. The remark by Barnier supersedes his earlier one (link) which was cautiously welcoming of the Johnson proposal:
“Michel Barnier privately gave a searing critique of Mr Johnson’s plan, […]. According to someone in the room, chief negotiator Mr Barnier said: ‘The EU would then be trapped with no backstop to preserve the single market after Brexit.’ (link)
Good grief – the EU ‘trapped’ by us? And how on earth are the EU ‘preserving the single market’ when most of the world is, to my certain knowledge, not a member of the EU? Here are other ‘informed’ voices, unsurprisingly found in RemainCentral:
“Proposals to break the logjam over the Irish backstop were rejected as “unpalatable” and a “non-starter” by Northern Ireland business leaders yesterday. […] Business scepticism was shared by political and civic leaders from north and south of the border […]. Critics said that the consent arrangements in the proposal handed the DUP — through the voting arrangements of the Northern Ireland assembly — a veto over any closer future alignment with the EU.” (link, paywalled)
Here’s the Taoiseach, still insisting on the Backstop:
“After a telephone call with Mr Johnson last night Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, said: “The proposals do not fully meet the agreed objectives of the backstop. […] The people of Northern Ireland, by a clear majority, voted against Brexit. The majority of members of the Stormont assembly want the backstop and the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland do not want customs posts.” (link, paywalled)
It’ll be interesting to see if Varadkar will manage a careful climb-down should the EU deem Johnson’s proposal acceptable. Liam Halligan, writing in the paywalled DT, has this excellent assessment and a warning:
“The backstop was always a contrived hoax – cooked up by Dublin and Brussels to keep the UK in the customs union. New infrastructure on the Irish border could indeed be targeted by sectarians, but no such infrastructure is needed. Today’s barely visible frontier already copes with different currencies and tax rates. But while Johnson has put forward productive and reasonable proposals, Varadkar has painted himself into a corner. As a result, I see almost no possibility of any deal before the crunch EU summit in a fortnight. Brussels will then signal its willingness to grant an extension – why not, given the prospect of £1 billion a month and potentially a second referendum? That would leave Johnson with no choice but to confront the Benn Act and the Remainer Parliament that created it. This Brexit impasse, ultimately, will have to be solved not in Dublin or Brussels but closer to home.” (paywalled link)
Note the reference to our continuing payments to Brussels should there be another extension! A billion quid per month are not to be sneezed at, especially given the gloomy economic assessment by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the DT this morning:
“As Boris delivers his ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ proposal to Brussels, the eurozone has its back against the wall. Germany is in recession. Europe’s industrial slump is deepening. The European Central Bank is a broken and exhausted institution, whatever the theoretical – and irrelevant – possibilities of extreme monetary stimulus. […] The eurozone is paralysed. The Stability Pact, the Fiscal Compact, and the apparatus of fiscal contraction – written into treaty structures and the EU Acquis – render it chronically incapable of generating its own domestic demand. It relies on Anglo-Saxon and Chinese demand to stay afloat. […] The question that EU leaders must ask themselves […] is obvious: can they risk the unforced error – indeed the chosen error – of a no-deal Brexit on top of everything else?” (paywalled link)
It seems they are prepared to take that risk. No surprise then that EU ‘diplomats’ and other ‘sources’ are already plotting to get that extension letter when – not if! – Johnson’s proposal will be rejected by the Remain HoC:
“ Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a senior Christian Democrat, said that an extension would be needed because Mr Johnson’s latest Brexit plans were “not serious and violate the law”, both in terms of the EU’s single market and the Benn act. […] “Not least to protect the sovereignty of the British parliament, EU should give long extension.” (link, paywalled)
It is always so deeply gratifying to hear of the deep concern EU politicians, especially German ones, have for our Parliament! The economic facts described by AEP above have of course nothing at all to do with their zeal to get another extension! Here’s how this may still come to pass:
“Many senior European diplomatic sources said that the request for one extension until January 31 could come from “the head of government or head of state” which means either the prime minister or a representative of the Crown, embodied by the civil service. […] A Whitehall source told The Times that the extension letter could be sent by Sir Mark Sedwill, the cabinet secretary, or Sir Tim Barrow, the UK’s ambassador to the EU, should the prime minister refuse to sign or send it.” (link, paywalled)
You can be certain that the Remain Cabal will make sure such begging letter will be sent – and it will be accepted:
“According to diplomats, no European leader — not even President Macron, the most hardline — has reached the point of wanting to veto an extension and force Britain out. “Europe will have no other choice if there’s an extension request than to grant it,” said an official. “Politically, I don’t see how we could refuse it. The Europeans don’t want to take the responsibility for no deal.” (link, paywalled)
And there, in that last sentence, you have the reason for the Brexit impasse. None of them, from our own home-grown Remainers to the colluders-with-Brussels in the HoC to Varadkar and Brussels itself wants to take responsibility for Brexit, with or without a deal. They are frit.
A No Deal Brexit would be an economic catastrophe – for the EU. The £39bn would not be forthcoming at a time when the EU is in deep economic trouble already. Better to drag the UK down with them than do something for their own €-zone – and blame “Brexit”.
The Remain Cabal here at home would rather bring Johnson to fall and get an unelected Corbyn into No 10, installing a socialist Britain where everybody will be made equally poor. That is the madness of the Remainers and the EU dinosaurs who cannot do other than say ‘Nein’.
So keep your champagne on ice: this Johnson proposal does not quite yet a Brexit make. My foul weather warning for Brexit yesterday remains in force.
KBO!
Yes, well, it seems we are all saying it – Never mind the backstop EVERYTHING in May’s ****** ~Agreement was wrong. Yes what about our FISHING. Majority on here seem to agree that we do not want an Article 50 Agreement. We do not want an Article 50 extension.
Like someone else said on here recently, it’s time we stopped calling them ‘friends’.
John Drinkwater’s poem The Toll-gate House, has as its last line ”For the toll-gates gone, and the road is free.” ….. As a schoolboy I was required to memorise that poem, and 60 years on I can still remember it !
For me, that last line encompasses quite simply our hopes for Brexit, and the EU has been that bloody toll-gate !
Your view and findings of 4 to 1 in favour of Nigel over Boris, neither pleases nor displeases me, but it does worry me a lot. – Both of these guys want Brexit, but if they continue to have no mutual contact, one with another, then the Brexit vote could be split at a General Election ! – I want Brexit to be all that it can, and should be !
I will email my local Tory MP in the hope of raising my concern about the attitude shown by Boris towards Nigel. Perhaps you could do the same with TBP ! This is too important to let slide by way of personal attitudes !
Although I am a floating voter, most of my voting has been for Conservatives. Mrs May lost my vote, and I took membership of UKIP but since they have lost their way now with internal squabbles, I am now probably supporting the Boris leadership with Patel’s statement of an Australian points system for future immigration. (Nigel, please take note) !
Thanks for your input Vivian. ….. We will all K.B.O.!
We don’t want a points based immigration system like Australia. Before that system was imposed, Australia favoured European immigration and particularly immigration from the British Isles on the very simply grounds that Australia was a country with European norms of behaviour such that those who immigrated had absolutely no difficulty in integrating and therefore did not set up their own enclaves where different rules applied.
The further point is that Australia is a continent not a small island and there is absolutely no reason why we as an already overcrowded island need any more people. No: mass third world immigration is favoured by the liblabcon in order turn us into an Afro-Asian shithole. Vote Tory at your peril.
On a financial note, and everything comes down to money, we should demand the 7.5billion euros of taxpayers money loaned to the eu under the radar be refunded immediately and the treaty binding us to 36bn euros “callable capital” cancelled. This must be made more public.
Is Brussels prepared to “take the risk of No Deal…….”
Of course they are, one can see how they have been content to allow the southern med member states suffer, not least in scarificing a generation to long term unempoyment, becuase the politically driven euro project is “irreversible” regardless of the damage caused:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/266228/youth-unemployment-rate-in-eu-countries/
For Brussels politics always trumps economics and the fear of BREXIT contagion should the UK be seen to be succesful post BREXIT is paramount!
Just a snippet of information, not directly relevant to this article ; but may be of interest: Last Saturday this Wikipedia entry said( in the first sentence) that the “Benn Bill” (now Act) was “also referred to by TERRORISTS as the Surrender Act .” This has since been changed to text as per link below. But I took a screenshot of the original entry as proof. I may consider reporting it as hate speech against Brexiteers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_(Withdrawal)_(No._2)_Act_2019
Hello Mary, I couldn’t see the words you describe and wonder if it was the correct screenshot you posted. Lisa.
I can confirm what Mary says. The reference to terrorists was made in the pre-amble and further down in the body of text. The first reference was removed fairly quickly but the second remained for quite a while.
It is important to note that just about anyone can edit Wiki entries, so it may not have been the original author who put the references in, but who knows.
The link in Mary’s post leads directly to the current Wiki page, not her screen shot.
Lisa and Jim; yes, when I first read this last Saturday I took a screenshot of the first sentence reference to terrorists (as it seemed so incredible) but did this with a camera. So I can’t give a link to it here, but I can and have sent it to various people as an attachment to an email, so proof does exist !
I had not noticed or read as far as the reference further down to terrorists.
If you click on the clock on the green bar at the bottom of the wiki page it shows all the revisions made. The terrorist one was corrected on 28th Sep at 12:51.
“This Brexit impasse, ultimately, will have to be solved not in Dublin or Brussels but closer to home.”
“A Whitehall source told The Times that the extension letter could be sent by Sir Mark Sedwill, the cabinet secretary, or Sir Tim Barrow, the UK’s ambassador to the EU, should the prime minister refuse to sign or send it.”
There are two parallel themes to Brexit.
One is external and the other is internal. And both want to subvert British democracy. The Eu wants to use trade as an excuse to make Britain a colony of the EU globalist elite. The Remainains have embarked on a campaign to overthrow parliamentary democracy represented by the institutions of government and replace them with anarchy which would eventually turn into dictatorship.
Mr Leane – well said. Except for describing this bunch as ”elite”. They are NOT ”elite” in any sense.
The Boris backstop will surely be seized on as a reason for a united Ireland. Hopefully it will be rejected by the EU and leave the road to our clean exit open.
Amidst all the snake oil, the smoke and the mirrors we need to keep one thing in mind. As an American might put it: “We need a deal like we need a hole in the head”.
Leave without a deal and then negotiate. That would give time for us to see what Trump will do once we’re out. He’s busy with China right now. Is the EU next?
However with the Tories (who gave us May) running things; it is what it is.
So we need to look at detail like our territorial waters (fishing) especially round N. Ireland since the long-term plan, which began with the ‘troubles’, appears to be still be on track for N Ireland to break from the Union. Coal deposits under the North Sea would be another one to watch. Then there’s innocence until proven guilty and no arrest without charge. And what always gets left out, the gifting to the EU of our armed forces.
Michael Keal: May’s proposed “Security Treaty” to be signed separately, also has always gone under the radar, cunningly not part of Brexit negotiations. Politicians are hell bent on signing it but are keeping very quiet about it; if challenged they just parrot that the EU Arrest Warrant and Europol memership are necessary for cooperation over cross border terrorism, crime etc. No matter to them that EU Arrest Warrant comes at the unacceptable price of us being sucked into a full totalitarian state presided over by EU Public Prosecutor, with arbitrary “justice” system and EU paramilitaries officially on our soil. This will crawl out of the woodwork big time soon when for example we will want to protest against huge taxes and immigration, only to be brutally slapped down. Another lovely little present from the Tories; what a wonderful party, not.
I also remind that the UN Global Migration Compact will kick in opening the immigration floodgates. This also Govt sneaked off very quietly and signed up to last December.
Any talk of extension periods, or remaining in this or that alignment for this or that period, has me feeling sick. It smacks of maintaining the status quo until a different government or plot can sweep in and cancel all arrangements before they become permanent. Never mind a week being a long time in politics; four years is geological time in politics.
I know miraculously there was a majority for leaving. But do not underestimate the myriad mitigating factors, such as boredom, fatigue, our malignant media, bread and circuses, the Pavlovian voting reflex of certain tribes and client groups, new voters from the massive over-immigration that is quietly continuing apace and the brainwashed young leaving our indoctrination, sorry, education system.
Remain has successfully made it all about trade (which is only one factor and one that can be agreed as equal partners after Brexit), because they have even fewer arguments in other spheres where our subjugation is more obvious. We must exit fully, farming, fishing, defence, intelligence, law, every aspect; guillotine all treaty ties, now or never. There may be minor inconveniences but no one moves job or house, or recovers from injury (and it has been a near fatal injury to our nation – just look at how incompetent and naval-gazing our politicians have become, as one example), without some teething problems.
Remain has indeed made it all about trade but are never challenged on why the UK needs to pay £9bn net in membership fees and have a £96bn trade deficit in order to trade.
No other country in the world, for example Canada with CETA, pays membership fees to trade with the EU.
In 2016 Remain copied the 1975 Referendum strategy of scaremongering on the economic (trade) issue, hence Project Fear and this continues today,
Vivian,
My wordy and lyrical leading Brexit lady. My mornings would not be the same without your insight into all that is wrong with Brexit. Your words fill the spaces in my (tiny) brain where the thoughts are often present but the words have yet to form.
I wish for a ‘no deal’ Brexit, anything other will be a contrivance and a vehicle for remaining in, even partially in or, otherwise the creeping, cancerous growth of slipping back in, piece by rotten piece. Theresa has already signed the closer military integration part of the Treaty, bless her, may all her springtime’s be frosty, so I know that the remainers will not stop in their deviousness and treachery.
Keep up the good work young lady you are a shining star, a super nova no less, in a rich galaxy of stars for Brexit. I await your next serving of delicious, impassioned, concise and fruity daily Brexit betrayal.
Yours,
Arnie.
Thanks, Arnie – if it was your intent to make me blush from the tip of my head to the tips of my toes then you have succeeded!
I’ll certainly keep on about Brexit Betrayal until the traitors (if that word hurts someone’s feelings, then so be it, it’s intentional) have got their just deserts – like losing all access to the fleshpots that are seats on the Green Benches and on the plush red ones in ‘the other place’.
The next 28 days will be crucial. Meanwhile, you and everybody else must KBO – pester your MP, they work for you. They must keep their promise to get us Out – or else.
Yes, my gardening implements are sharp, just in case, but I’m not advocating violence …
Happy to make you blush, you have many fans who are as passionate about Brexit, and those who would betray. Have a great day. Arnie
‘A No Deal Brexit would be an economic catastrophe – for the EU. The £39bn would not be forthcoming at a time when the EU is in deep economic trouble already. Better to drag the UK down with them than do something for their own €-zone – and blame “Brexit”.’
Oh yes and it’s something that I don’t think many people are very aware of,at least not the full possible and probable consequences. What is coming down the pike won’t be a recession or something that we’ll come out of in a year or two.
Over ten years since the 2008 financial crisis and central bank are not just starting money printing and asset purchases but stepping it up, something is seriously wrong. I find it almost unbelievable that people can be fooled into thinking that all we had to do is keep printing, the party was always going to end money and I’ve often written about this in my articles. What our government should be doing is battening down the hatches and working out ways to protect its citizens but they seem determined not to do this and just follow the globalist agenda.
I meant to include a bit about the above in an article that I’ve just submitted to Viv but ran out of space, I’ll pick up on it again soon. In the meantime, have look at this video:
“Critical Updates: YOU ARE BEING ELIMINATED.. By Gregory Mannarino”
https://youtu.be/E6F95-qp0I0
This man does rant and rave I’ll admit but in this case his analysis is correct. What is coming has the potential to be a mass extinction event, if we’re to survive, we need to put ourselves and our country first and sod everybody else, we need to be gone from the EU and the UN as well. Leave the EU now!
I hate to sound overly dramatic but I’ve been studying this coming scenario for too long and I can see just too clearly what very likely will happen and it won’t be the fault of Brexit, it will be the fault of globalist politicians, bankers and businessmen. Time to pull up the drawbridge I’m afraid.