Friday 30 August 2019

Britain descends into Brexit madness

A former Conservative prime minister takes the current Conservative prime minister to court. This surely is madness run riot. If ever the Conservative party needs unity it's now when strategic decisions have to be taken for the future of this country. Now I'm the last person in the world who wants the UK to crash out of the EU with no deal. And, strangely, I actually don't believe Boris Johnson wants to leave without a deal of some sort. He has been upping the rhetoric in order to get the EU to back down and give a small concession so that a withdrawal agreement can be approved by the House of Commons before October 31. So the legal move by Sir John Major to take the government to court and try for a judicial review at the High Court next week to stop the suspension of parliament in order to provide enough parliamentary time to legislate against a no-deal Brexit will just muddy the waters. The blackmail card in Boris's hand - the UK out of the EU on October 31 deal or no deal - will be useless if the judges in their wisdom find in favour of Major and co and efectively give carte blanche to parliament to stop a no-deal at any cost. If Major wins he will at a stroke undermine Boris's chances of forcing the EU into offering a fresh deal, one that does not include the wretched Irish border backstop clause. Of course Major is very pro EU, and that's good. He helped negotiate the historic Maastricht Treaty in 1992 which expanded European integration. But as a fellow conservative and a former prime minister, his action against Boris looks like he has joined the Mad Hatters' Tea Party. But if the judges refuse to launch a judicial review on the grounds that the suspension of parliament is a matter for parliament not the courts, Major will have to get inside his box and keep quiet, and leave the suspension issue to all those in the Commons who claim it's a constitutional outrage. With the UK and EU negotiators now meeting twice a week, perhaps it's an indication that our EU partners have realised they MUST rewrite that May withdrawal agreement unless they are happy to lose the country with the fifth largest economy in the world and pretend nothing has happened. The EU club will be devastated whatever its bureaucrats claim to the contrary. So, I think there WILL be a deal before October 31. But only if the pressure is maintained by the Boris government all the way to the end. John Major is definitely not helping.

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