Johnson and Corbyn will compete for power by selling out the Union

All the hooh- hah from Polly Toynbee and others about forming a government of national unity to stop No Deal – forget it. Boris Johnson won’t even have to bother committing  the constitutional crime  my constitutional expert friends have been deploring.  It’ll never get to that. Their best hope now is a general election but one called pretty much on Johnson’s terms and timing. Robert Peston’s trenchant piece saves me the bother of explaining. It’s so good I quote it …

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A real test for Boris Johnson. Will he convene the Intergovernmental Council at a time when an open breach over Brexit seems imminent?

We are in worse confusion over Brexit than anything in modern times, short of total breakdown and conflict. On one side there is a withdrawal agreement that will never pass this House of Commons. On the other there is the persistence with a backstop that threatens an outcome it is designed to prevent. This is not a rational situation. And yet the train is on course to hit the buffers. Boris Johnson will have satisfied himself that he has gone …

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As the threat of No Deal looms, the rhetoric is becoming raw

A century ago,  two European states which talked like this at each other might have been on the brink of war. Without pushing it too far there is a tiny echo here of big bully Austria-Hungary leaning on little Serbia in the hot summer of 1914. (It will be remembered  in the end Austria-Hungary imploded and Serbia expanded). Now no one of course is contemplating such a drastic breakdown. But how tragic and infuriating it is to be eating into …

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Julian Smith’s role – to keep the DUP happy and step up plans for No Deal including direct rule

Boris Johnson being ” clapped in” by staff on  entering No 10  Julian Smith may not be a household name in Northern Ireland but his name resounds in every Conservative MP’s household and generally throughout Westminster. He was Theresa May’s last chief whip tasked with trying and failing three times to pass her withdrawal agreement. Bemoaning the scale of his task, he  told the BBC’s Laura Kunnesberg in April.. that when his party failed to get a majority in the …

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We’re heading for an autumn general election, the postponement of NI abortion reform and temporary direct rule

No to time limits or unilateral escape hatches or all these elaborate devices, glosses, codicils and so on that you could apply to the backstop,” he told a debate hosted by The Sun on Monday.

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A rare event. Northern Ireland is at the heart of a Commons challenge today to prevent a No Deal Brexit

Dominic Grieve QC MP Boris Johnson is expected to become  PM  just one day before the Commons rises for the summer recess, leaving only a few weeks  to challenge him  “not bluffing”  over quitting the EU at Hallowe’en, deal or no deal.  In perhaps the only available opportunity before the recess begins on 25 July, Northern Ireland is at the heart of moves by dissenting Conservatives to try to stop him today.  The opportunity created is  what would otherwise be …

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Government moves to damp down No Deal panic created by leadership bidding war

The bidding war between Johnson and Hunt grows more depressing by the day. The ideal differentiation would have been Hunt the rationalist pointing out the huge risks of Johnson’s “ hell or high water” date with the 31 October deadline. But this is no seminar. It’s a struggle to woo a tiny electorate supposedly in a frenzy to Leave  before the victor confronts two very different electorates in turn, first the Commons and then if he gets that far, the …

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Johnson and Hunt may pose as champions of the Union but if elected the winner is not automatically Prime Minister

Photo. Getty images   Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt continue to vie with each other  in a bidding war which includes who is the greater  verbal champion of the Union above all else. Both of them claim to be able to square the circle of Union First and No Deal  but No Deal if necessary. On the Marr Show Hunt said he would do both,  but then I lost track of his reasoning. As nobody bothered to  report what exactly he …

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Both sides are now contemplating a physical border. What will stop it?

The looming prospect of No Deal is producing all sorts of ferment, with the focus on  the clashing red lines over the Border.  This was always the case but is now made more acute by trying to extract meaning from Boris Johnson’s smokescreen of bumbling towards victory in the Tory leadership election. Will anything he says bear the force of unbreakable promises to his electorate? The optimistic answer is probably very few, but by its nature it can’t be relied …

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Out of left field. . Boris’s backers in the media are talking up a new deal from Brussels – if he starts talking sense as PM and can deliver the Commons

Jean Claude Juncker

Bruno Waterfield of the Times sees potentially more movement from the EU than the  ultra Europhiles seem to think possible – provided EU 27 are convinced  Johnson can sell an amended deal to the Commons

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There is a case for Boris Johnson, the only one able to bring off the biggest screeching U -Turn of our times

Why does Boris rise and rise if he’s so hopeless? It’s the burning question. Talented  bloke,  on form a stylish and witty writer  who has earned  600k  in just over a year. The evidence suggests a Jekyll and Hyde character with egotistical  and sociopathic tendencies. Not exactly unusual in leaders.  A philanderer who compelled a girlfriend to have an abortion – like Lloyd George “the man who won the war” in 1918. I’ve been looking at the case in his …

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Boris stonewalls for dear life

Daily Mail splash  Can any politician survive such scrutiny?  Hard to complain when the dastardly deed is almost live on camera like Mark Field’s collaring of the Greenpeace protestor –               And what about  Boris’s  row with his girlfriend, loud enough to be recorded through the wall? Will  either politician survive the twitter storm?  There’s simply no way of knowing.  In this supposedly more tolerant age the tumbrils  roll for those whom we  take …

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Boris fudging over Hallowe’en deadline likely to end in general election

As the Tory leadership contest passes to the party’s version of the people, we may expect Boris Johnson’s approach to Brexit to come under scrutiny for the first time. We only know from the last vacuous TV debate that he like Gove and Hunt cannot “guarantee “ leaving on  31 October.  However  EU sources are saying they would only grant a deadline extension for a general election which would compel a halt to proceedings .  The whole pretence of a …

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The threat of annihilation in a general election will be Boris’s strongest card

( This is considerably rewritten in the light of the news that Boris Johnson will make his public  pitch tomorrow, Wednesday)

What a depressing business it is to be one of the 60 million plus UK voters looking on while the Conservative leadership candidates go through their hoops. It has little to do with discovering where the real world of Brexit lies. As  the Duke of Wellington is supposed to have observed, surveying his troops before Waterloo: ” I don’t  know what they do to the enemy but by God they frighten me.”

For candidates, the blunt truth is that campaigning for the leadership is a different exercise from the big encounter with the EU. But it has to be won first and different even contradictory tactics are required.  The impact on politicians ‘ wider credibility is ignored.

Between now and  next Thursday 20 June at the latest, it’s all about whether two hard line No Dealers,  or one no Dealer and one so called Remainer will make it onto the  ballot for party members to chose between them and for the whole process  to be  wrapped up on 20 July.

In  personality terms this means a choice to put before the membership between two arch Brexiteers Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab,  or Boris Johnson and one principled anti- No Dealer from among the cabinet ministers Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove and Sajid Javid, with Hunt – (“Theresa May with smarm”) currently having the edge.

Next Thursday’s choice – before it goes to the membership – is critical. Two hard Brexiteers makes a No Deal departure more likely. One from each side suggests MPs would tolerate a longer search for agreement with a Deal at the end. Johnson will avoid Theresa May’s mistake of negotiating by remote control through a civil servant and isolating herself from the cabinet. If Johnson  works for  cabinet unity and chooses a cabinet colleague like Jeremy Hunt or even his old nemesis Michael Gove  over Dominc Raab, he will be signalling a willingness to compromise  on the apparently hard line of  his Sunday Times interview.

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Taking Boris to Court is Really, Really, Stupid

I can’t believe how many people on my social media feeds are cheering on the unbelievably anti-democratic and morally wrong court case against Boris Johnson over the notorious £350m a week bus slogan. But even for those who can’t see this as wrong, the stupidity of giving a master charlatan and showman like Boris Johnson his day in court should be obvious.   I have wider worries than Boris backflipping his prosecutors and using this case as a means to …

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After Theresa.. how to avoid more of the same

As today’s Euro elections  consign the two main parties of the UK to minority positions, their struggle to reclaim relevance will begin. The parties are obsessed with themselves more than with sorting Brexit but sorting Brexit will remain the acid test of survival. As Peston points out: YouGov shows backing for a hard or no-deal Brexit at 40% via intentions to vote for the Brexit Party (a staggering 37%) and UKIP.Whereas support for a referendum would ALSO be 40%, aggregating …

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Will the DUP demand a new PM as the price of keeping the Tories in power? Enter Boris Johnson – or Sajid Javid?

The DUP’s support for the government is hanging by a thread, or at least for Theresa May,  if only they can find the means of severing it . Arlene Foster has spoken of the prime minister in the scathing language of antique patriotism the DUP reserves for special opponents: Despite the prime minister being warned about the opposition to her withdrawal agreement, she has limped along and tried to force people into a cul-de-sac where they have no option but …

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Foster expresses deep regret for party’s mistakes over RHI while Boris imagines ‘UKNI’ dystopia but fails to excite DUP activists #DUP18

Read back key sections and listen to speeches from today’s DUP Conference. Arlene Foster apologised for the party’s mistakes over RHI, hinted at a ‘cultural deal’ and expressed her wish for devolution to be restored. Boris Johnson spoke about buses, Brexit and light sabres …

What was that again about a breakthrough?

Yesterday to the Sunday Times, the British side was talking up the prospect of neutralising the backstop and forecasting the emergence of a winning formula. Today EU sources were clear that they were keeping the backstop in reserve and fully charged, while back home, the reported formula was being attacked by Leave and Remain.  By Tuesday we should know if there is enough agreement to call an EU special summit on 21st November. Full marks to Patrick Smyth of the …

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May’s team claim to find flexibility in DUP demand for legal guarantees for no checks ever in the Irish Sea

This is a running story .. Latest at 22.53 The FT leads with  DUP puts May on notice over Brexit backstop Arlene Foster tweeted defiantly: Meeting with Prime Minister just ended. NO border in the Irish Sea will ever be acceptable to unionists throughout the UK . . . regulatory or otherwise. Government sources claim there must be just enough wriggle room created by new time limits. But are they deceiving themselves  once again? From the FT story For some months, Mrs May’s team …

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