Bojo and Brexit

If Boris Johnson is in the last two candidates selected by Tory MP's, for the run-off as Tory Leader, he will win an overwhelming majority from Tory members, who given their average age is over 70, can hardly be described as “activists”. Those “activists” back a No Deal Brexit by a margin of around 80% to 20%, pretty much identical to the almost equally aged Tory voter base. If Tory MP's do not select Bojo, or some other hard line Brextremist like Dominic Raab, as one of the last two, whose names are put to party members, they will face a backlash from the Tory Associations, and a further flood of members out of that party towards Farage, and his Brexit company. 

All of the pundits have been consoling themselves with the idea that the favourites in Tory election contests rarely become Leader. But, it is not an inviolable law. Johnson is not liked by many Tory MP's. Some see him as not a Tory at all, just like Republicans did not see Trump as a Republican. It didn't stop Trump becoming the Republican candidate for President, nor then Trump increasingly turning the Republican Party into a Trumpist Party. In order to get into the last two, Bojo will have to get around 120 votes. With the ERG having around eighty votes, and some other Tories outside the ERG, saying they will back him, it seems unlikely that he will not muster that number. He may face competition for the ERG votes in the early rounds. Dominic Raab, seems likely to pick up a lot of hard Brexiteer votes, but probably not enough to beat Bojo for support from that wing of the party. The die-hard Brextremists are already setting up their betrayal narrative, by backing Steve Baker, on the basis that, unlike Bojo, Raab, or David Davies, he did not buckle and vote for May's Meaningful Vote 3. 

Baker probably has no chance of getting into the last two, which, for reasons I will come to, is probably a pity. The run-off is likely to be between a centre-ground Tory, still trying to get a version of May's Withdrawal Agreement past parliament, and a No Deal Brexiteer promising to just crash out in October. All of them will be pulled to the right, to assuage the party rank and file, especially as the Tories are likely to have been crushed by Farage's Brexit company in the European Parliament elections. Whether the Brextremist candidate is Bojo or Raab, they will get the vote of the party members, and become the next PM. 

There are then two main options. Bojo had always argued, prior to the referendum, that a vote to Leave, or even just a large minority vote in that direction, would give the basis for the Prime Minister to go back to negotiate for more concessions from Europe, along the lines of the concessions previously given to Thatcher. That will undoubtedly be the first ploy. They have established the narrative that its only because May took No Deal off the table that the EU did not offer further concessions, including scrapping the Irish Backstop. It is nonsense. There are two reasons the EU did not make further concessions. Firstly, they know that no sensible PM is going to push through a No Deal Brexit, because whilst it would be an inconvenience to the EU – though less so now that it has had the last year or so to prepare for it – it would be catastrophic for Britain, leading to a level of chaos and breakdown that would not be tolerated, and would quickly lead to Britain having to make an emergency appeal for re-admittance to the EU, on whatever terms it could get. It is now, as it has always been an empty threat. Secondly, the EU cannot scrap the Irish Backstop, because to do so would mean allowing the Irish border to be an open breach of the EU Single Market and Customs Union, the former being the most significant. It would be undermining the whole basis of the EU itself, which it is not going to do. 

A British Prime Minister has then a number of further options, if they want to reach such a deal. They could agree with the EU that Northern Ireland be treated differently, and essentially remain inside the Single Market and Customs Union, which is what May initially proposed. But, the DUP will not stomach that, and so to pursue that course, the Prime Minister would have to call a General Election, and win a large enough majority that they could push through such a course of action without the support of the DUP, or hard line Tory Unionists. Alternatively, they could decide that Northern Ireland is an encumbrance, and open the door to a Border Poll leading to a United Ireland. That would face the same opposition from the DUP and Unionist Tories, but it could also not guarantee such a border poll would vote for a United Ireland. Finally, they could push ahead with a No Deal Brexit, and dare the EU to respond. The problem then is that that implies the UK breaking an international treaty obligation, in the form of the Good Friday Agreement. It would sour relations between the UK and the EU, at a time when the UK would be desperate to try to negotiate some post-Brexit trading and other arrangements with its much larger neighbour. Moreover, having reneged on an international treaty, it would not put Britain in a good position to be negotiating treaties with other countries. And, the reality is that, whatever either may currently say, if such a situation arose, the EU would have to erect a hard border in Ireland, to protect the Single Market, and Britain would erect a hard border too, because it would want to prevent large-scale migration across the border, as a back door into Britain, as well as preventing large-scale smuggling into Britain. 

The truth is that no British Prime Minister, be it May, Bojo, Raab or Baker, could actually implement a crash-out No Deal Brexit, because of the catastrophe it would cause. A bunch of very elderly Brexit voters, who still imagine that Britain rules the waves, can turn up as many times on Sky News and other vox pops, to invoke the Dunkirk Spirit to proclaim that they would “get through it”, as Brexit crashed the economy, but for those already retired, about to retire, or who have, in any case, been in long-term unemployment, its easy to be blasé about the loss of jobs that would result. But, they fail to think about who, under those conditions, would be paying their pensions and benefits! They fail to remember that Dunkirk was a massive defeat, and that by 1940, Britain, as a whole, was defeated, and was only rescued by the valiant efforts of the USSR, and its Red Army, and by the industrial might of the US. Those who see May's deal as tantamount to a surrender, like that of a nation defeated in war, as one Brextremist from Middlesbrough put it on Sky News, should get used to it, because that is the position that Britain is now in. 

The other main option for such a Prime Minister, therefore, is to go to the EU, and propose a “Managed No Deal” solution. That is what some of the ERG have also argued. A number of temporary agreements have already been reached with the EU, to prevent some of the chaos that would ensue from a crash out Brexit. As a result, they depend on a measure of good will remaining from the EU, which could otherwise not be forthcoming if the UK tried to push a hard line. It would mean that the Prime Minister would have to go to the EU, and ask for another extension of Article 50, beyond October, so that these current temporary arrangements could be extended, and established as a series of bilateral arrangements. The EU might agree to that, because it too does not want the disruption that a crash out would cause if it can be avoided. 

At the start of the year, I argued that May would be mad not to call a snap election in February, on this kind of agenda. With Labour haemorrhaging votes, due to trying to pursue its insane pro-Brexit stance, it would have meant that the the Tories could have won a clear majority. I would expect a new Tory Prime Minister, now to pursue that course, before Labour is itself forced, by its members, to adopt a clear anti-Brexit stance that is the only way it can win a General Election. 

But, this does not get the Tories out of the hole they are in. All the cards are in the hands of the EU. Unless the EU does agree to a further extension of Article 50, Britain will crash out at the end of October. For all the reasons previously set out, no British Prime Minister is going to allow that to happen, whatever they might say at the moment. That is why it would be preferable for the most ardent Brextremist, like Steve Baker, to be Prime Minister, because they too would have to back down, under such conditions. As it is, now, if Bojo or Raab become Prime Minister, the Tory Brextremists, channelling Farage have their betrayal narrative in place, already, that these are the same people who buckled to support May's Meaningful Vote 3. 

The reality, is, as was the case prior to it becoming apparent that May and parliament was not going to allow Britain to crash out at the end of March, if it even began to look like a Prime Minister was contemplating such a course of action, the Pound would crater, the UK Stock market would go into freefall, UK Gilts would crash in price, sending interest rates soaring, and the government would be forced to change course. And, the fact is that the UK economy is already in a parlous state. Productivity is appallingly low, encouraged by a low wage environment that gives no incentive for capital to introduce labour-saving technologies. The economy, in the last quarter, grew at a miserable 0.5%, and even that was largely driven by hoarding by businesses and consumers ahead of a potential crash-out in March. Retailers are dropping like flies, whilst foreign car companies are pulling out of Britain ahead of any potential Brexit, whilst British Steel collapses, causing around 25,000 job losses. According to liquidation specialists Begbees-Traynor, around half a million businesses are suffering severe stress, and could go bust, whilst another 160,000 are zombie companies, barely able even to pay the interest on the loans they have taken out. On top of that, the Pound is already sliding again, and inflation is rising. 

The fact is that, when Bojo, Raab or whoever else goes back to negotiate with the EU, they will find themselves faced with the same options. Either scrap Brexit, or agree to membership of the Single Market and Customs Union, but without a vote. Those are the same options that Britain faced as the only means of escaping the Irish Backstop, and they remain the same today. And, so even if the EU gave the UK some leeway with an extension of Article 50, to negotiate some additions to achieve a Managed No Deal those options would still apply. After a managed No Deal, there is still the question of Northern Ireland, and of Britain's trading relationship to the EU. 

The Brextremists frequently tout, in this regard, the so called Canada style Free Trade Agreement option that the EU had offered, but they fail to mention that it does not deal with the question of the Irish border, and would require that Northern Ireland remain inside the single market and customs union, to resolve that issue. But, if then Northern Ireland remained inside the Single Market and Customs Union, Scotland would demand the same right, and so too, possibly would Wales, as well as Gibraltar, which voted by over 90% to remain in the EU. It would mean Britain being effectively dismembered, with England being left as an increasingly shrivelled husk within it. 

The likelihood is that, in these conditions, a Bojo or Raab, would, like May before them, have to come back with something like her Withdrawal Agreement, or probably worse. But, the truth is that as Britain has wasted several months since it was given the last extension, and will waste several more over the Summer, as the Tories engage in internecine warfare, the EU will simply sit back, and offer no such extension. Its being touted that the election of a Bojo will make a No Deal Brexit more likely. On the contrary, it makes it almost inevitable that parliament will have to Revoke Article 50 to prevent such an event. Labour should get ahead of the field, and begin to argue for revocation now.