Tuesday 23 July 2019

Now it's Trump and Boris versus the rest of the world

Forget about worsening relations between Wahington and London over the forced-out British ambassador etc. Now Boris is in charge of Great Britain everything will be tickety boo. Or so Boris hopes. The two men are natural bedfellows, they are populists, they both want to put the Great back into their respective nations and neither seems much to care what they say in public. It'll be Humpty and Dumpty sitting on the same wall. Whether this turns out to be good for the rest of us it's too early to say. But after months of deep pessimism and despair and Brexitmania I'm determined to be confident and hopeful and optimistic for the future. Boris will take his new mighty burden of leadership responsibly and by some miracle he and his accolytes will force the EU to redraw the Theresa May Brexit deal and come up with something which Parliament will pass. After all, the vast majority of Parliament will never support a no-deal Brexit and will thus be desperate to agree a deal, almost any deal, by October 31 to avoid crashing out of the EU with nothing signed and sealed. The 27 other EU nations will feel the same sense of urgency and no-deal panic, whatever people like Michel Barnier, the top Brexit bureaucrat, claims. He always says that the EU is fully prepared for a no-deal Brexit and he says it with a straight unsmiling look-into-the-camera voice. But no one in the EU, not France, not Germany, not the Dutch etc etc want a no-deal anything. They want an arrangement by October 31 as much as Boris does and they might just negotiate a way out of the mess with Boris on the other side of the table. Provided Boris doesn;t send some bearded faceless civil servant to do the negotiating. It has got to be a senior minister with a big brain and negotiating skils not yet shown by any of the Brits sent to Brussels in the last three years. Michael Gove is your man, Boris. Swallow your dislike of Gove and send him to confront the somber Barnier. If a deal is done by October 31, Boris will enjoy a magical honeymoon. And if Trump rings up his Brit buddy and offers a huge trade deal, Boris will be laughing. But of course that will depend on Boris surviving political coups against him, not least from Tory MPs who hate him for even considering a no-deal Brexit. They could destroy his government before it has even started by teaming up with Labour and the Liberal Democrats who want to stay in the EU, never mind the 2016 referendum result. That would mean a general election which Boris might well lose. Then the great Trump/Boris swingalong will never get off the ground.

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