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?
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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 is catastrophic for the project. The UK's economy is bigger than 19 member states put together. As the fifth biggest economy, fifth biggest trader and ninth biggest manufacturer in the world (based on statistics that vary only slightly on whether the World Bank, OECD or others are used), as well a Permanent UN Security Council Member and nuclear power, the UK leaving weakens the EU morally, politically and economically.
This is especially so in the eyes of the rest of the world, which represents 85% of the world economy and which is growing much faster than the benighted Eurozone. Britain may well be self-loathing, but outside of its borders there is a (sometimes grudging) recognition of the influence the UK has, through language, culture and history. In many parts of the world few have not heard of the UK, whereas often the EU is seen as irrelevant or even is unseen.
Without the UK the EU controls about half of Europe's population and only 1/3 of its landmass. More capital moves through London markets than any other member state, money talks. On paper the UK is the second biggest contributor but factoring in the CAP and CFP is in fact the biggest in real terms. The bureaucrats don’t call the UK treasure island without reason.
The EU is struggling to maintain consensus, with Poland, Hungary and Italy lined up against the Franco-German axis. EU enlargement, now that Turkey's membership is off the table, looks like a failed policy. In promoting regime change in Ukraine the EU may well have bitten off more than can be chewed. EU policy, especially monetary and in respect of enlargement, is crashing against the brick walls of reality.
The idea, common on the continent, that EU offered the UK a fair deal is so far from the truth that it suggests a grasp of real politic that is weak to the point of fantasy, but this is common amongst EU staff. They live in an insular self-referential bubble, driven by the infantile political philosophy of "ever closer union", without any thought as to where, once the illusory union has been achieved, they are headed.
Reversing Brexit is an existential issue for the EU, if Britain leaves and is successful, the apex of EU power will already have been reached. Euroscepticism is growing across member states. It is feared, and rightly so, that Brexit is the beginning of end, others will follow.
That the UK’s media and parliamentarians are, by a large majority, determinedly against the UK leaving should not be seen as a sign of their support for the EU project, for they know not what it is. Very senior UK political figures when asked to name the member states could not do so, when queried about the Common Foreign and Security Policy they have no idea, if asked which states are in the process that leads to EU membership they don’t know.
The lack of knowledge as to what the EU actually is and where it is heading allows for a form of projection. Individuals, concerned with different issues however divergent, fantasise that the EU will be the solution. This is what allows Momentum millennials and right of centre Tory grandees to both be so hostile to Brexit. Capitalist and Marxist can delude themselves that the EU will deliver them to their own promised land. This is only partly because the nature, goals and structure of the EU are so opaque, self-deception also plays a significant role. Nick Clegg’s “an EU army is a dangerous fantasy” although proved wrong was being echoed by Alistair Campbell on Nigel Farage’s LBC radio show three years later and even after the Commission, France and Germany have all publicly indicated that a unified EU military is not only the plan, it is the only plan. The EU is a mirror in which its supporters see a reflection of their own desires, to see through the shiny gloss requires an uncommon level of insight and the courage to banish the siren call of wishful thinking.
All political constructs collapse, that the EU will do so is undeniable, the only question is when. Brexit will make the EU's demise come sooner than later, which is why the powers that be in the European Commission have from the start negotiated in such bad faith. A real Brexit is the EU’s death knell and will not be tolerated.
But there will be Brexit at some point, the only choice is now and voluntarily or in the future as an unavoidable, dangerous and damaging result of the unavoidable implosion of the Union. The EU is a sinking ship, the wise, rat or otherwise, swims away. Sadly wisdom seems to be a rare commodity amongst those that exercise the levers of power, allegedly on our behalf, but more accurately over us.
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 future military planning and procurement.
My conclusion is that the intention of the WA is to prevent the UK really leaving the EU so as to pave the way, or even force, the UK to rejoin. And were that strategy to fail, its secondary purpose is to both punish and humiliate the UK.
In summary the WA is not Brexit and it provides scope for preventing Brexit. It is an unequal agreement, with the EU having powers that make the UK subservient in the subsequent negotiations that follow the WA.
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 ...