Johnson's Three Card Trick

My Bulgarian, Portugese, Polish, Italian, Romanian, Russian and American readers will, I know, be waiting “with bated breath” for my reaction to the latest Brexit development. So my post is based on 5 of your questions -

- How did he manage to pull it off? 

- Will it fly tomorrow in Parliament? 

- In what sense is it different from the Deal which Theresa May negotiated last year?
- What are this morning's front pages saying? 
- what happens now? 

1.     How did the “greased piglet” manage to pull it off?

The media reaction in the UK so far seems to assume that all he conceded was that Norther Ireland will remain under EU rules, for the foreseeable future - with the Belfast Assembly (mothballed since January 2017) given the power to decide when to opt out. The reality is rather different (see section 3 below).

The EU’s main concern has been to maintain the integrity of the Good Friday agreement  that saw the end of violence in the north. The EU could not accept the idea of any border controls or customs arrangements on the border between Ireland (an EU member) and Norther Ireland (UK). So the EU was happy to get this concession – although it just seems to postpone the moment at which there could be such controls….

One of the known risks is that the North could eventually unite with the Irish republic - but Conservative party members have already given a clear indication they are fed up with Northern Ireland and would be happy to see it go. And ditto for the Scots – who have too loud a voice in the British Parliament - and have anyway clearly stated that what’s sauce for the Irish goose is sauce for the Scottish gander.  

2.    Will MPs vote for it?

Johnson’s tactics have loosened the parliamentary logjam. He basically threw his allies in the DUP (the Irish unionists) to the wolves when he made the concession. When Theresa May gambled in the 2017 General Election and lost her majority, she had to make major concessions to the DUP which cost a lot of money.

The DUP was strongly supported by the right-wing ERG group in parliament (led by Jacob Rees-Mogg) - but the approach of a No-Deal reality; and the distaste for the Irish connection seem to have been sufficient to allow a lot of the ERG members to peel off and declare their support for the Johnson Deal.

And, of course, Boffy had sorted all this out by Thursday afternoon.

Reaction from Northern Ireland itself suggests general acceptance for what would be a considerably increased special status

MPs have this year consistently voted down May’s Deal and also what few efforts Boris Johnson managed to put in front of them. The Labour party has 6 simple tests for any Deal -

1. Does it ensure a strong and collaborative future relationship with the EU?

2. Does it deliver the “exact same benefits” as we currently have as members of the Single Market and Customs Union?

3. Does it ensure the fair management of migration in the interests of the economy and communities?

4. Does it defend rights and protections and prevent a race to the bottom?

5. Does it protect national security and our capacity to tackle cross-border crime?

6. Does it deliver for all regions and nations of the UK?

As a party, they cannot therefore support this new Deal – not least because they simply don’t trust Johnson in his assurances about coherence with EU-type regulation (the “level playing field” of EU jargon)

That leaves the mavericks who have left or been booted out of the Labour and Conservative parties in parliament – about 30 of them. 
It is therefore basically their votes tomorrow which will decide this….

And this is a quite brilliant analysis of the choices individual MPs now face - with the gun at their head and given a mere 36 hours or so to make a decision whose consequences will reverbate for at least decade. As Jeremy Bentham might have put it “nonsense on stilts”!

3.  How does the Johnson Deal differ from May’s?

The border basically moves from the Irish mainland to the Irish Sea. And the Northern Irish Assembly (which has been in abeyance for a couple of years) is given the power to decide on its extension (or not) of EU customs regulations.
But Johnson has basically been deceiving most of us with his version of the "three cards trick".

Our attention was on the harsh reality of No-Deal - against which this deal is better.  If, however, we compare this Deal with the Theresa May one, this one takes the country out of the Customs Union and Single Market....
It took Ian Dunt of the Politics Today website to remind me of that basic fact - despite my having reproduced the Labour Party's 6 tests above. 
MPs, of course, are not as stupid as me and will not fall for such legerdemain (????)

The detailed provisions which Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement  had made about the “level playing field” have been removed and put, instead, into the political agreement (which, of course, has no legal force)

Readers can see for themselves in this track-change document produced by the Open Europe website - which has also produced this guide to the Johnson Deal

This confirms the view of those who read the very composition of the new Johnson Cabinet as indicating he was going down the American path of loose regulatatory capitalism...

4.     What the front pages of the British  Press are saying

Most papers make it clear that this is not a done deal. The Times says: “Final hurdle in sight as Johnson gets his deal”, the Guardian reports: “Johnson gets his Brexit deal – now it’s a numbers game”. The Mirror says: “On the brink of Brexit … once again”, the i has: “Johnson gets his EU deal … now for the tricky part” and the FT says: “DUP veto threat leaves Johnson’s Brexit deal gamble in the balance”.

Other papers are sounding warnings to MPs to vote for the deal.

·         The Telegraph quotes from the prime minister: “It’s my deal or no deal”,

·         the Daily Mail features a picture of Johnson pointing, with the headline: “He’s done his duty. Now MPs must do theirs”,

·         The Sun has rhyming advice: “Get real … take the deal”
the Express says: “Just do it!”

And the European press is clear that the concessions were all Johnson’s

5. What Happens Now?

There could be a slight hiccup tomorrow if an amendment is selected and passed for MPs to be given a few more days to given to read and assess the implications of what is before them (see next post). The government has denied MPs an official cost-benefit analysis but enough independent economic analysis is available to indicate that the costs of the "hard" Brexit this is will be very severe....

This post from Richard North reminds us that, even if the UK Parliament approves the deal, it becomes a “done deal” only after ratification by the European Parliament and the European Council - which may take more than a week. 

And that, if the deal is voted down (however narrowly), it immediately triggers the Benn Act whereby the government has, legally, to seek a 3 month extension from the EU

So there…consider yoursel' tell’t!

Further Reading

- https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/oct/18/how-much-johnson-great-new-deal-actually-new; perhaps the single best briefing – includes a visual guide to the 5% difference between May’s Deal of 2018 and this one. And also to parliament’s vote on 19th
- https://www.politics.co.uk/author/ian-dunt; the best British website on politics and Brexit

- https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2019/10/time-and-motion.html; The most incisive and objective of the many Brexit blogs

- http://eureferendum.com/Default.aspx; the most independent of the pro- Brexit blogs
- http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-withdrawal-agreement-implementation.html; detailed legal commentary on the latest withdrawal agreement 
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/consolidated_withdrawal_agreement_17-10-2019_1.pdf - all 537 pages of the official withdrawal agreement from the EU website