The prime minister hopes the EU will scrap the “backstop” in return for unspecified commitments to keep the Irish border open. If the issue wasn’t so serious, one would think this was one of Boris Johnson’s jokes.
His letter to Donald Tusk pretends to be the opening gambit in a negotiation to replace the backstop Theresa May negotiated to ensure the Irish border stays open in all circumstances. But Johnson has nothing concrete to offer in its place. All he has are two flimsy proposals.
The first is to put in place alternative “arrangements as far as possible”. But that’s all there is. Not even an attempt to spell out what these alternative arrangements might be.
Johnson recognises this won’t reassure the EU. So his second proposal is that, if the alternative arrangements aren’t ready by the end of next year, he will “look constructively and flexibly at what commitments might help”. And that’s it. Not even a hint at what commitments he’s prepared to make.
Remember that much blood has been spilled in Northern Ireland – and that the UK has a historic duty to do whatever it can to uphold peace there. Remember, too, that we signed the Good Friday agreement to ensure exactly that, so we have a legal duty too.
As if that’s not enough, we have a strong interest in maintaining the peace. Democrats in both Houses of Congress have made clear they will block any trade deal between America and the UK if we undermine the peace process. So no amount of sucking up to Donald Trump will give us the dubious benefits of eating chlorine-washed chicken.
Johnson says the backstop is undemocratic. But he totally ignores that Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU in the referendum – and that he himself voted for the core principle behind the backstop in December 2017 when he was foreign secretary. Now he is telling the EU that he wishes to rip up paragraph 49 of the “Joint Report” containing that commitment. What hypocrisy.
The prime minister is right about one thing. The backstop is bad. It requires the whole UK to stay in a bare-bones customs union with the EU without a vote on its rules – and it requires Northern Ireland to stay in large chunks of the EU’s single market, again without a say on the rules. That’s losing control, not taking it back.
Johnson should have thought about all this when he backed Brexit in the referendum rather than blithely dismissing concerns. The only good way out of this mess is to cancel Brexit. That way, we won’t need border controls either in Ireland or between Britain and the rest of the EU.
We have to fight this madness.