After a meeting with top Tory Brexiters at Chequers over the weekend, and confused reports about a possible third “meaningful vote” on Theresa May’s deal this week, there is speculation a promise to Brexiters that the prime minister will resign could be enough to win their support.
This would be the height of hypocrisy for a hardliner like Boris Johnson, who even today accused May of having “bottled it” in EU negotiations and called her deal a “democratic disaster” on “Carthaginian terms” – i.e. “very humiliating” for anyone not as steeped in classical history as Johnson.
And yet… Johnson adds today that the deal could still go through Parliament. But it would need “convincing proofs of how the next phase of the negotiations [with the EU] – when all the key questions are to be settled – will be different from the first”.
Could one such “proof” be the resignation of the prime minister, giving Johnson the chance to fill her shoes? It shouldn’t. The deal will still be rotten – and it would mean rowing back hard on comments made up to this point.
“We have wrapped a suicide vest around the British constitution – and handed the detonator to Michel Barnier.”
That was Johnson’s reaction last September to the original “Chequers plan” – the forerunner to May’s deal – and specifically the Irish border backstop. The concept for the backstop – if there’s no new trade deal by 2021 then the UK enters a bare-bones customs union with the EU – remains largely the same.
“We were taken in.”
Again, Johnson last September, claiming he was duped into originally supporting the backstop as a cabinet member in December 2017. He’s got no such excuses this time.
“It’s vassal state stuff. For the first time in a thousand years, this Parliament will not have a say over the laws that govern this country.”
That was Johnson’s reaction when the text of the deal was revealed in mid November. Damning, but also note how it is inconsistent with his arguments during the 2016 referendum where he said we’d lost control of our laws already.
“This deal is finished, it’s over, it’s dead.”
That was Johnson after the deal was voted down the first time by a margin of 230 votes. So, if Johnson does ultimately back the deal, will he be dabbling in a bit of necromancy?
“Appalling deal… staggering [divorce] sum… humiliating implementation period”
Just last month Johnson used his Telegraph column to attack several aspects of the deal, including the estimated £39 billion financial settlement (which will probably be much larger), and the 21-month transition period which would see us keep access to the EU’s single market but follow all the EU’s laws – including new ones – without a say.
None of these bad bits of the deal have changed. And even if Brexiters think they could change it later, by taking control of government after May’s gone, they will struggle. Trying to scrap the backstop or crashing out on WTO trading terms would mean reneging on an international treaty and causing huge damage to the UK’s global standing. Backing May’s deal at this point to pursue such an uncertain path would be as reckless as it is hypocritical.