Conservatives: a party of fools

By Pete North - August 26, 2020

It wasn’t enough for a prime minister to simply deliver Brexit. Any PM had to share in the delusion – or at least pretend to. That’s why Theresa May had to go. The Brexiteers believed it was just a matter of talking tough and not backing down, bludgeoning the EU with the threat of no deal, and the EU would fold because German car makers would demand it.

Theresa May’s fatal mistake was to acknowledge the reality that Brexit is far from straightforward and that common rules were part and parcel of trade. Not so the oaf Johnson.

What was never appreciated was how May managed to shunt the most difficult issues into the next phase of talks. The dreaded backstop was exactly that – a backstop in the event of trade talks failing. Not only that, she secured a commitment to phase it out were it ever activated. Tories don’t put much stock in side agreements but the EU does. It was bankable.

This subtlety was lost of the oaf who then set about turning the backstop into a front stop, largely to persuade his bovine supporters that he had done what no-one else could – reopen the deal. When David Cameron got away with his phantom veto stunt it set the precedent that our entirely credulous media will believe anything they are told, but more importantly, so will most Tory members.

To bolster this weak position, the Tory media luvvies pulled out all the stops to hail the conquering hero, largely oblivious to the catastrophic mistake. Johnson’s blundering essentially handed Northern Ireland to the EU with no option to renegotiate.

The turnaround was startling. Every Tory Brexiteer in the Commons voted for it, every cabinet minister signed up to it having previously denounced the deal as Brexit in name only. It didn’t matter what was in it. Only who’s name was on it. They are only now realising what a dog’s dinner that is. Not that any of them will take any responsibility.

In the end it wasn’t about the actual outcomes. The Spectator wrote “Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal has changed everything”. It wasn’t talking about the deal, rather how it impacted the Tory party politically. And that was the the fullest extent of their concern. Electability.

Only now they have a sizable majority and they’re safe for a four years do Brexiteers register their displeasure. But it’s too late now. It’s signed, sealed and delivered and it was all their doing. Their man, their deal. This is what they fought for and won.

This is where the Tories are going get a rough ride of it come January. As yet there are inadequate preparations for a border either down the Irish Sea or at Dover. As much as the remainers are going to get stuck in, so will the Brexiteers. Having taken the line that any deal at all is not Brexit they can claim “true Brexit has never been tried”. The all encompassing cop out.

Meanwhile the media invites us to participate in the will they, won’t they soap opera of trade talks, skirting round the fact that as far as exports by road are concerned, there is little to choose between a deal and no deal.

Of course, our view remains that in the absence of a comprehensive deal, a structured trade agreement is still both necessary and desirable as is an agreement on fishing. The UK doesn’t have the resources to police a fisheries ban. To intercept rogue fishing vessels, surface and air assets are needed, and it is unlikely that the Royal Navy has the resources to fight a full-scale “cod war” assuming it has nothing better to do.

Deal or no deal, the Tories are going to learn the hard way that trade is a touch more involved that agreements on tariffs. They said we just wanted a “Canada style deal” but their request for continued cabotage rights within the single market is a function of the single market and one that necessitates level playing field provisions.

From the beginning Brexit has been driven by a collection of misapprehensions. Ultimately the Tories don’t get the EU or the discipline of international trade. Ever since the formation of the WTO the game has been less about tariffs as the rules of trade and the EU is bound by those rules the same as everyone else. Among the Tories there was always the presumption that the EU could and would make exceptions to those rules and weaken it own system, because the UK was a special case. Too important to lose.

This has always been to misunderstand the EU. The EU is a creature of rules, and though it has played fast and loose with the rules during the Euro crisis, it did so over an existential matter. It was never going to do the same for a departing member. Where trade is concerned, it values its own system integrity and sovereignty more than it values trade. A wholly different mindset to the libertarian idea of “free trade” whose adherents believe it’s just about trade volumes.

The Tories haven’t just been wrong about this. They’ve been comprehensively wrong. Even among Tory remainers, I recall many of them telling me that we would get a better deal than Norway. But that just isn’t how the system works. There isn’t anything between the now bog standard EU FTA template and single market membership. You pick one or the other.

For the EU to grant any special favours to the UK would ultimately open them up to demands for equal treatment from others. Particularly those who share a land border with the EU – hence it won’t make any concession to the UK on cabotage.

And then we’ve had no end of fantasising about the possibilities of leaving without a deal. Just about every crank on the circuit has appeared in the right wing press to share their ignorance with us. In most people ignorance can be corrected but Tory columnists and radio hosts seem to have developed their own herd immunity to outside influences. They broadcast their ignorance with supreme confidence oblivious to how moronic they are.

With tribalism being what it is, Brexiteers have soaked it up and to this day the “they sell more to us” schtick lives on, entirely undisturbed by reality. Only when they see it for themselves will they realise why regulatory harmonisation matters and even then, having invested so much over such a long time in such terrible misconceptions, they won’t admit it even to themselves. We can expect a barrage of excuses.

I don’t think people will buy that though. They’ll get a hard time. Much of what is about to transpire was predictable and predicted long ago. It was all spelled out in the Notices to Stakeholders and though they may wish to distance themselves from what they said, the internet never forgets. Julia Hartley-Brewer, Liam Halligan, Allister Heath, Shanker Singham, Iain Dale, Fraser Nelson, Brendan O’Neill, James Delingpole and just about everyone else connected to that sordid little circle jerk will have a case to answer. As will the ERG.

If there is an upside to this tale of self-deception, dishonesty and hubris it is that these people will never be taken seriously again. Or at least one would hope so. But then they will also play their part in covering for the Tories to deflect the blame in the direction of the EU. It may work for a time, but as the job losses mount even the most sophisticated spin machine can’t save the Tories.

But then there is plenty of blame to go around. The ERG could not have deposed Theresa May without the help of the remainers. Remainer MPs outnumbered leavers almost four to one. They had the numbers and the opportunity to pass Theresa May’s deal on the condition of remaining in the single market. That they failed to get their act together is no-one’s fault but theirs.

We should also not forget that the remain movement itself played a part in radicalising the Brexiteers. There was a singular lack of wisdom in play. Had the referendum gone 52-48 the other way that would simply not have been a mandate to continue on the same trajectory, any more than the Tories had a mandate for severing all formal relations. There should have been a collective realisation that the UK needed a radical change to its relationship with the EU. Instead of acknowledging that reality, the remainers went all out to deny half the country their votes.

What we are looking at is a collective failure of our politics and our media. At every major test it failed – and will keep failing. Perhaps January will be the final straw when the people realise that we simply cannot go on like this. If that penny drops with sufficient motivation to finally do something about it then it will have been worthwhile. If not, we deserve what we get.