In denial over the front stop. Now Boris floored by 4 year old Jack, lying on a hospital floor

The NHS howler of this campaign has hit Boris Johnson so hard he wanted to hide it in his pocket in the middle of an ITV News interview ..

And more on another Johnson brazen denial -.the building row over the frontstop. Two Europe editors take his case apart, culled from Twitter.

Peter Foster Europe editor of the Daily Telegraph

HOW can Whitehall design this new GB-NI border or customs ‘filter’ UNTIL it knows what the shape of the UK-EU deal is….I mean this is officialdom being as polite as it can be about politicians being daft.  The Brexit department is saying is that, um, well, sorry Prime Minister but it’s quite hard for us to design an all singing, all dancing new border AND get business to internalise and stand up the new systems until we even know what we’re trying to do. Which we won’t. Until November.

So how does the Conservative election machine respond when George Parker of the FT confronts them with this basic truth, backed up by this pesky leaked document? They just go the full Dalek…We are leaving! We are leaving! We are leaving! Exterminate! Exterminate!

I get this is politics, I really do, but taking the nation for fools – as Boris Johnson did on the Sophie Ridge interview on Sunday – is not going to make it any easier when reality bites and the country needs fact-based decision-making.. ll these leaks show the Whitehall machine putting down markers ahead of time – since the civil servants know they’ll get the blame if things are late/didn’t work. “They never wanted #Brexit anyway..

If Johnson wins Thursday, #Brexit is going to happen. That’s when the light bulb goes on – until now it’s all been phoney war. UK political factions fighting and negotiating with themselves. That ends on Friday if Johnson wins…but something else ends too.

Then the legal guillotine descends on 46 years of EU membership there will be no going back (at least not for a generation given hurdles for re-accession) and that means, potentially, a different kind of political conversation….everyone will need to stop and re-think. here is a moment for some statesmanship. “The die is now cast, and this country is about to embark on the most fundamental re-wiring of its society and economy for a generation…” There is a chance for a rebalancing – of labour markets, of the north-south divide… And, dear citizens, that won’t happen overnight. Now that deed is done, we need to chart the course ahead after proper consultations with industry, with the regions and devolved governments and wider civil society.

Perhaps that’s all pie in the sky, but shutting the door on the UK’s membership of the EU will be momentous. And when we hear the click of that door behind us and turn our faces to the wind, we may feel it icy on our cheeks…but there is no going back.

Theresa May had her moment to level with the public after the 2017 defeat, at great cost both to her and the country. If Johnson wins, he has another chance. He has talked of the “One Nation” approach but left himself precious little political space. t as the Whitehall leaks of have shown, when #Brexit gets under way for real, it is going to have real-world impacts on industry and citizens alike.

Is there anything more misleading than the phrase “zero-tariff, zero-quota Free Trade Agreement? The impression that Boris Johnson gives is that this deal will frictionless, it will be ‘oven ready’, trade will flow freely over the borders with Europe while we are free to do deal with everyone else.  (With due respect) to the trade experts who have been banging on on this, I know, but the public need to understand that you don’t GET the ‘zero quota’ until you can prove your stuff qualifies…and that means a lot of form-filling. That means cost, even if ‘max fac’ tech can smooth the way.

Katya Adler, BBC Europe editor 

When supporters of Boris Johnson say: he achieved what so many claimed was impossible: he got EU to renegotiate #Brexit deal therefore he can also get an EU trade deal done by December next year although many say unlikely .. It’s important to remember the red line PM crossed.

He didn’t get the new Brexit deal by bullying/impressing/charming the EU. He got it by agreeing to protect their single market on island of Ireland after Brexit by putting a customs border down the Irish Sea. Allowing a ‘division’ between NIreland + GB he’d pledged never to do. Of course the EU also engaged with Boris Johnson because they believed that he – as a political figure – had a better chance of selling a deal back home to MPs than Theresa May ever had – BUT have a chat in EU circles. nd you’ll hear the only way Johnson really has chance of getting bare bones FTA with EU done and dusted by Christmas next year is if he crosses his own red lines again and gives in to EU concerns ie. level playing field regulations and allowing EU fishing rights in UK waters.

Getting it done seemed of more importance to Johnson with the #Brexit deal than keeping his word about the union and avoiding a dividing line down the Irish Sea. How might it be with an EU trade deal? Would he give up ‘control’ and ‘sovereignty’ for a quick deal by December 2020?

Remember if he signs up to ongoing alignment with EU environmental, labour, state aid competition rules etc after Brexit, then where’s the national sovereignty he promised voters? And if he doesn’t sign on the dotted line, then negotiations with the EU are bound to take longer. hen again, if he did keep U.K. close to EU, then Brexit-related divisions between NIreland and the rest of UK would diminish as the EU need for controls/checks/paperwork to keep an eye on what’s coming in or going out of their single market/customs territory would decrease.

It all comes down to not being able to have your cake and eat it. Those trade-offs so many politicians seem very reluctant to come clean about.

Brian Walker

Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London