Penny Mordaunt’s smirk as she called Boris Johnson’s reckless intervention on the Northern Ireland protocol talks “not entirely unhelpful” is noted. “Boris is being Boris,” she purred indulgently as if she was his mammy rather than the leader of the British House of Commons.
His intervention was “helpful” because he had reminded the European Union of her government’s threat to override the protocol unilaterally, she explained, as if describing some ingenious statecraft. “Boris being Boris” could as easily translate to being caught spaffing up the neighbour’s wall as to an attempt to smash an international treaty signed off by himself. The total absence of shame or humility remains shocking enough. Mordaunt’s grinning affirmation makes it unconscionable.
Johnson “allies” and “Brexit Spartans” are uniting behind the disgraced former prime minister who wants to “bring down Rishi Sunak”, according to the loyal Telegraph. “For all his faults, I think people are looking at Boris now and thinking: ‘What the f*** did we do?’” says an ex-Brexit minister. As always it’s not the power-crazed fantasist that boggles the mind; it’s the hangers-on who wilfully ignore the clay feet crumbling before their eyes.
Last July, when Michael Gove told Johnson to go amid dozens of chaotic resignations, a defiant prime minister responded with a tale about one of his uncles who had “failed to take his meds one day”. The uncle was a London district planning officer who ended up in a dispute with his superiors, culminating in the man barricading himself into the town hall with a shotgun until being eventually bundled out by the police. “That is going to be me. I’m going to fight, they’re going to have to prise me out of here,” said Johnson.
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The big threat was pathetic bluster. With nauseating predictability he’s taken his “fight” to the people of Northern Ireland instead. That his European Research Group fans still defer to him is on them but Penny Mordaunt’s indulgence of this crazy shtick merely confirms the unseriousness of her and her colleagues. What self-respecting world power demonstrates that void of self-awareness at such a delicate juncture?
Micheál Martin put the focus where it belonged on Monday when he said the people of Northern Ireland have had enough of the power play and of those playing politics with their future. “People had legitimate concerns around the operation of the protocol,” he added, in the ongoing effort to help everyone save face and restore the institutions. Westminster rumours suggest early rejoicing in “some remarkable concessions” by the EU. Get the ear plugs in now.
Meanwhile, the origin of it all, the burn-everything-down essence of the Brexit vision is proceeding under the radar. The scorched earth philosophy is distilled in the dreary-sounding Retained EU Law (REUL) Bill, wherein Jacob Rees-Mogg proposes to incinerate about 4,000 pieces of retained EU by December 31st. The point apparently is to render regulation suitably agile and nimble for the new super-soaraway shackle-free UK. The eye-popping side effect is that the sane and rational ministers of this Tory government will be granted sweeping powers to re-make, retain, discard or amend thousands of pieces of legislation as they see fit. No one has a clue how that power will be used, and reassuringly it will all happen in a mad rush, away from the prying eyes of parliament.
The potential fallout for areas such as employment law, environmental regulations and food safety law is incalculable. Courts will be encouraged to disregard old case law based on European statutes. The very definition of “business” could be reopened. And that’s not counting the lavish potential for honest cock-ups. Ministers will not have the time – or even the inclination – to replace individual pieces of legislation. “It is like lighting a fire in a library, and handing the librarians a photocopier and marker pen to save what they can,” says the Economist (no hotbed of liberalism).
The incineration of EU rules and regulations was the most screamingly obvious Brexit plan all along and that’s not just a domestic problem for the UK. Various alarmed EU bodies and negotiators are assessing how, for example, this bonfire will sit with “level playing field” provisions at the heart of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Threatening noises are already being made about “unilateral rebalancing measures”. The protocol had better be Armageddon-proof.
All this, remember, is also the vision of Brexiteer Rishi Sunak. The REUL Bill is happening on his watch. The abuse of Northern Ireland politics to indulge Eurosceptic theology is what Tories do. These are big, big moments.
Where does he go from there? Everything else has been tried: Theresa May with her exploding red lines and disastrous election; Johnson with his custom-designed Vote Leave government purged of all principled MPs, his “excellent” EU deal and huge majority; Liz Truss and her literally ruinous let ‘er rip economy. All converging in a hot mess of a parliament with three hostile, former prime ministers in the chamber, one hellbent on reclaiming Sunak’s job.
There is no one else to blame, nowhere else to turn and nothing much to lose.
Sunak’s choice is clear. Constantly taunted by the opposition leader as “weak”, he could finally take a stand, take a leaf from the Johnson 2019 playbook and turn this deal into a confidence vote – in other words, threaten an immediate election that would decimate the dissenters.
Then he should sack what remains of them and set about building a new politics in a decent, honest Conservative party.
If not now, when?