Mary Poppins had “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. Boris Johnson has his own magic word: “Super Canada Plus.” If he says it loud enough, he hopes the British people will give him a majority in the coming election.
The latest outing for Super Canada Plus comes in Johnson’s infamous weekend video which enticed Nigel Farage to stand down in seats that the Tories won in 2017. The Prime Minister says: “I want to stress [the future EU deal] will… not [be] based on any kind of political alignment… We can have a free trade agreement on the model of a Super Canada Plus arrangement… We can get a fantastic new free trade agreement with the EU by the end of 2020.
There are three things wrong with this statement. First, however many superlatives and pluses you add to Canada, it doesn’t change the fact that the country has a far worse deal with the EU than we do. It barely covers financial services, our largest industry. It doesn’t remove customs checks either – and so would gum up the supply lines of our manufacturing industries.
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Second, Canada took seven years to agree its deal with the EU. Johnson claims he can do a similar deal by the end of next year. As a result, we risk a disastrous “no deal” Brexit in less than 14 months.
Third, the EU won’t give us even a Canada-style agreement unless we agree to lots of regulatory alignment. The political declaration sketching out our future relationship with the EU makes this crystal clear. It says:
Given the Union and the United Kingdom’s geographic proximity and economic interdependence, the future relationship must ensure open and fair competition, encompassing robust commitments to ensure a level playing field. The precise nature of commitments should be commensurate with the scope and depth of the future relationship and the economic connectedness of the Parties. These commitments should prevent distortions of trade and unfair competitive advantages. (Paragraph 77)
Johnson can’t have his cake and eat it. He either agrees deep regulatory alignment – or he can’t get a deep free trade agreement. He can’t even get the same deal that Canada has because of our “geographic proximity and economic interdependence”. The EU is rightly concerned that we would otherwise compete with it unfairly.
This isn’t just what the EU thinks. It’s in a document the Prime Minister negotiated and now foolishly boasts about.
All he can do is sing along to Mary Poppins and hope the voters don’t see through his pyramid of piffle.
Oh, SuperCanada-gilisticexpialidocious
Even though the sound of it
Is something quite atrocious
If you say it loud enough
You’ll always sound precocious
SuperCanada-gilisticexpialidocious
Um-dittle-ittl-um-dittle-I
Um-dittle-ittl-um-dittle-I
Um-dittle-ittl-um-dittle-I
Um-dittle-ittl-um-dittle-I
The opening paras were tightened up shortly after publication
The headline was updated on December 4