For a few months now I have written about how the EU’s plan is increasingly transparent, and it is becoming possible to anticipate their every move.
I believe we are now so close to the outcome they wargamed a year ago, that the final week is now almost completely predictable.
For what it’s worth, here we go.
I said back at the start of the year that the EU don’t care about the backstop – it’s a non-issue for them:
“Your MP is now under maximum pressure to Vote. For. Chequers.
But the final dramatic flourish is now imminent – they have made the alternatives sound as bad as they can, so it’s time to make Chequers sound a little sweeter.
The EU is about to go full dramatic chipmunk, and capitulate on the Irish border issue.
In reality, it was never a thing – it was a fake problem. A phantom. They never cared about the Irish border. It was only there so they could pretend to sacrifice something later.
To make us feel like we had won, and that refusing to sign their deal now would be wholly unreasonable. Because look how reasonable THEY have been.”
They don’t care about the Irish border, but they care about Britain remaining in the EU. They care about that A LOT.
And in this regard they are joined by all the Remainers within the British Establishment, who feel (for different reasons) that Britain’s departure from the EU should be avoided.
The EU are Remainers because they need the UK to pay for their federalist wet dream.
The British Establishment are Remainers because they are convinced that the UK needs the EU in order to stay relevant on the world stage.
So the EU have been able to rely on Theresa May, and Philip Hammond, and the CBI, and the BBC, and the civil service, and a raft of other establishment figures to pursue this goal on their behalf – these people are a fifth column, representing the wishes of the EU from within the UK.
Which of course is why the EU have always displayed such confidence – they have placed traitors in our ranks.
The EU’s plan has been to get this fifth column within the British establishment to present the EU’s preferred treaty (previously known as “Chequers”), and then invent a meaningless sticking point that could become the focus of all attention.
The EU have made sure that our media have harped on the backstop for a year – the Irish PM has been used to make the issue seem real.
And after a year of stressful wrangling, this thorn can now be removed from the paw of the British people, and they will be so pathetically grateful for its removal that they will not then tear apart their MPs.
In a way, the removal of this thorn (that the EU placed in our paw) simply provides political cover for this act of betrayal.
And this is a pretty standard negotiating tactic – offer a low price with an attached condition designed to irritate the seller. He’ll focus all his attention on the condition and will be delighted when you eventually remove it, forgetting what a terrible price he has accepted.
Like offering a feminist a slight reduction in the tax on tampons, as long as she performs for free at the local strip club at weekends.
So this coming week, the EU will water down or remove the backstop they never cared about, and the British people will be betrayed into vassalage by their Vichy Parliament.
That’s right – another “breakthrough” is imminent, although I suspect the EU will once again trot out the gap-toothed Belgian bumpkin Verhofstadt to pretend to find the whole affair insulting, so we remember to be properly grateful to his paymasters.
All other options now are just scare tactics – No Brexit, No Deal, long extensions, a general election, a loss of drinking water, or pet food, or medicine – these are all just the Bad Cop act designed to get us to gratefully turn to the Good Cop.
Namely the EU’s Withdrawal Agreement, which as I’ve pointed out is like the Withdrawal Technique in that despite the promises made, it usually involves no actual withdrawal.
We have been herded for nearly a year like scared children towards the EU’s treaty, which imprisons us forever in the EU – it is what they wanted all along, and they have used our government, our MPs (with a few dozen honourable souls still resisting as I write), our media, and the craven statists embedded in our institutions to convince us that the EU’s Withdrawal Agreement represents freedom.
In this coming week, all but a few dozen stalwarts will crumble, and then the only question is whether enough Labour europhiles will cross the House to pass this grotesque betrayal and inflict it on the British people.
At that stage, I wonder whether our cries of fury and anguish will fade into silence, or swell into carnage?
The WA is an awful deal but it does mean the UK is legally out of the EU.
Unless I’ve missed something, the legal clause that traps us is the Backstop. Without that we could leave without the approval of the EU. Now that requires our politicians and Whitehall to negotiate us out (which they have spectacularly failed on so far) but it should be possible.
Is there some other trap waiting for us even excluding this Irish question?
Nothing short of a time limit will do, no govt composed of present MPs will take us out unilaterally. You’d have to be crazy to believe them now. There will always be a reason not to act.
But we have this problem now – they aren’t going to go “No Deal” as per the recent votes in the Commons.
An election in 2020 could sort out the current over-representation of Remainer MPs. This does drag things on but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
As ever that is caveated on the electorate not just voting for the same old donkey in a Blue/Red/Yellow rosette.
I don’t see why I should wait to get what I was promised before and after the referendum and what was in the manifesto of the tories and labour. I will never be able to trust them again, those parties will not be getting my vote under any circumstances.
And the commons has no mandate to vote ‘No Deal is ruled out’, they put no deal in a law, and that alone counts.
Being, to my shame, an erstwhile employee of the European Commission, involved in the making of policy, I have to agree with the general thrust of this article. However, the EU’s primary goal is to prevent the UK leaving the EU, only secondarily to ensure that if their first goal is not fulfilled that they must make leaving both as “soft” and as fractious as is possible; particularly in respect of maintaining control of UK trade policy. The backstop is, and has always been, a red herring, it is a bone of contention that has no marrow. Losing the UK… Read more »
Articulate and (from my perspective) a cogent view on where things are.
Any insight on whether the WA without Irish backstop is good or bad (for the UK – fuck the EU)?
Having struggled through, and struggled to discern the consequences of, the WA I take the view that when coupled to the Political Declaration it is a document that is both hostile and detrimental to the UK . During the negotiating period of indeterminate length the EU would be free to craft regulations and enter into trade agreements that could, and most likely would, adversely effect the UK. Perhaps even more seriously, as Sir Richard Dearlove has, along with numerous retired senior military figures, pointed out the WA threatens the UK’s security sector; specifically in the intelligence sector but also in… Read more »
Thank you for the assessment. I agree with the fact it is a very bad deal – what I’m trying to understand is whether the lack of the Backstop (as per the article) means we are at least free to tell the EU to piss off at some point rather than being stuck in an international treaty which precludes us from doing so.
The lack of the backstop certainly reduces the EU’s leverage, but not by nearly enough and its absence does nothing to improve the rest. As you say it is a bad deal, that is the case with or without the backstop.
I’m certain that, as the first lifeboats rowed away from the RMS Titanic, there were those on board pointing out how cold and dark it was in the North Atlantic, and how brightly the lights were still glowing on the promenade deck …