[The Slim Reaper]

https://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/201...ecency-no-hope

It was only moments into his speech that Boris Johnson started lying. "We will under no circumstances," he said, "have checks at or near the border in Northern Ireland." It was false. Overnight, the details of his Brexit proposals to Brussels had leaked. They showed that there clearly would be checks. The British commitment to preventing any customs infrastructure in Ireland would be broken.

Once upon a time, Johnson could make these claims because he was engaged in the magical thinking of 'frictionless trade' and 'alternative arrangements'. There's no excuse for that now.

The Johnson offer to the EU will be published this afternoon, but last night's leak by the Telegraph's Peter Foster was largely corroborated by the details the prime minister offered in his speech. It works by separating out two elements of a future trading relationship: customs and regulations.

Customs involves the assessment of tariffs on goods. Regulations involve checks on whether the goods comply with the rules of the country they're being sent to. In the EU, none of this matters - you have the same tariff regime and the same rules. Outside the EU, it all needs to be checked.

Johnson's plan sets up two timetables - one for customs and one for regulations.

The customs timetable kicks in first. His deal, like Theresa May's, would have a short transition until 2021. But after that, Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain would leave the customs union with no backstop. Johnson is taking no prisoners here. He is refusing any concessions. The lock keeping Northern Ireland attached to the Republic is gone. That means checks.

How would Johnson try to avoid them? He plans to have a free trade agreement (FTA) with the EU. But that's extremely unlikely to be achieved by 2021. Free trade agreements between major partners take a long time. The one between the EU and Canada took seven years.

But even if he did manage it, there would still be checks. FTAs can hammer down tariffs between countries. But even when that's done, goods have to go through a laborious process of checks, called country of origin requirements, to ensure they're really from the state they're being sent from. This is so that other countries can't surreptitiously sneak their way in with no tariffs as part of a trade deal they didn't negotiate.

The government rubbished a previous leak this week which said there'd be customs posts on either side of the border to do these sorts of checks. But actually it seems inevitable that there will be. Their promises to the contrary are meaningless. They rely on the idea that new technology will magically be invented in the next two years to make them unnecessary. This will not happen. It is one of the great myths of the Brexit argument.

This plan is a complete rejection of the British government's commitment in the December 2017 joint report to avoid a hard border, or any physical infrastructure, or checks or controls. It goes against the promises made to the people of the island on both sides - the Republic, which had no say in all this, and Northern Ireland, which voted against it. There is no consent from these communities for these proposals. They have made clear they are against what they propose. Johnson wants to impose it on them regardless. It is a threat to the peace process. It is a betrayal of the promise of continued north-south cooperation. It is a complete and total abdication of moral responsibility.

The approach to regulations seemingly involves more concessions. Northern Ireland would remain aligned with the EU on agricultural and industrial goods regulations. This is dynamic, meaning that as the EU updated its rules, they would update theirs.

On the face of it, this seems significant. It would involve checks on the Irish sea between Britain and Northern Ireland, which is the kind of thing the DUP - whose votes Johnson would need to get a deal through - vociferously objects to.

But there's a catch. The alignment only lasts until 2025. At that point Northern Ireland gets a say on what happens. Does it want to stay aligned to the EU rules or join the rest of the UK? In practice, this gives the DUP a veto, which they will invariable use. The language is democratic, but in reality it simply serves to stagger the regulatory departure.

It's quite a remarkably tone-deaf package. Basically the UK is taking a bullying position to the EU without having anything to bully them with.

Think about their incentives. This is the kind of thing which essential to successful negotiation but which the Johnson administration is seemingly incapable of.

If Brussels accepted the package, Ireland would be thrown under the bus. It would be a complete betrayal, something they have made clear they would never do.

That's not just a moral point. It is a strategic one. If they go against Ireland, no other member state would trust them again. The offer the EU makes to countries - that they become stronger by working together - would be shown to be false.

So why do it? Johnson is presumably gambling on the fact that if they reject it they'd face no-deal, which would involve the border emerging immediately, without the lead-in to 2021 or 2025.

But this assessment is very weak, because the moral reality of that point is inverted. If the UK decides to leave without a deal, then the consequences are its responsibility. But if the EU signed up to this deal, then it shares that responsibility. And on the areas it cares about - checks on the border, north-south cooperation - those consequences would be equivalent to no-deal.

Such a move would also destroy the EU's credibility in negotiations around the world. It would be seen to buckle on all its key demands in the face of intransigence and threats. Why wouldn't other negotiating partners try the same trick?

But even aside from all that, the threat is empty because no-deal is not actually the consequence of the EU rejection of the deal. The Benn Act ensures that if there is no deal he must ask for an extension. He insists this is not true and that No.10 has found some kind of loophole in the legislation. Given his record, that is likely to be either false or a gross overstatement of some pitifully weak tactic. But even if it were true, parliament could work around it or see Johnson forced to retreat via the courts.

So the EU's incentives are not his deal or no-deal. They are his deal or extension. And extension opens up the possibility of a less insane negotiating team, or even another referendum with a result to Remain, making the whole border problem go away.

It's hard to come up with anything positive to say about this. It shows no understanding of the EU's red lines, no basic moral responsibility towards the problem in Ireland which the Brexit vote created, no consistency with the previous commitments of the British government, no viability, no practicality, no realism, and no concessions at all to the half of the population who voted Remain. It is almost impressive that after all this time they have come up with a proposal that has nothing whatsoever to recommend it.

[The Slim Reaper]

https://politics-punked.com/2019/10/...british-heist/

Brexit means…taking back control of the things we haven’t lost, to lose control of the things we already have.

As a middle aged man, I am beginning to fall into the trap of yearning nostalgia for my youth. I now think that the good old days were better than today. The music was certainly better in my day, as was Scottish football. But the reason I have a yearning nostalgia for the bygone days of yore is the exact opposite of why many people people voted for Brexit, I am wistful for a time when British people wanted to be part of some sort of liberal internationalism with our European neighbours through the common market. I am also wistful for the day when foreigners were made welcome rather than seen as some sort of existential threat. But nostalgia is a powerful emotion. It needs to be harnessed correctly rather than exploited. And right now, nostalgia is being harnessed and exploited by all the wrong people.

Many Leave voters voted to make things better. Many people who voted for Brexit did so for emotional reasons connected to hope. Leave voters wanted to jump into a time machine back to a Utopian Britain that may or may not have existed. Back to a time and place where Britain was a country full of hope.

Hope is a powerful thing. Politicians ruthlessly exploit it. And with Brexit, it has been exploited to such a degree, it has become a political sting. Brexit is the greatest political heist that Britain has ever seen. A gigantic con led by a group of right-wing libertarians who have exploited the hopes of millions of people to convince them that they were taking back control, when in fact, they were giving the control away to the people who conned them. So instead of making things better, Brexit will make things a lot worse. Britain will become a place where the hope becomes hopeless.

Many Leave voters feel disenfranchised. I get that. They are right to feel that. But they wrongly believe that the EU is to blame. The tragedy of Brexit is that the EU isn’t the source of problems facing Britain. Instead, decades of UK government failure are the true problem. Failed economic policy. Failed industrial strategy (or lack of). Failed regional regeneration. Failed social policy. All of which have created a society where the rich get richer and our communities and public services pay the price.

The hollowing out of Britain’s industrial communities and rampant privatisation by the Tories in the 1980s sowed the seeds of Brexit. It led to a giant fire sale of British industry, creating huge regional inequality and many of our communities have never recovered. Our industrial heartlands were decimated. Towns became rust belts. In the years since the mid 1980s, to put it mildly, the pendulum of hope has swung away from millions of people.

Fast forward 20 years. The financial crisis of 2008. I don’t remember a nurse, doctor, teacher, police officer or local council causing this crisis, yet, they were the ones who ultimately paid the price for unethical gluttony in our financial services industry. What followed the financial crisis was a decade of austerity with the destruction of many public services and a drop in real wages that created a new generation of poverty, a million visitors a year to food banks and a whole new cycle of resentment and the destruction of hope.

For four decades, millions of people within communities right across the country have seen a decline in their social fabric. The key community frameworks of a happy and stable society have been dismantled, defunded or sold off. It has made many people unhappy, disenfranchised and understandably, wanting something or someone to blame.

Sadly, it appears that many people have lost sight of the root cause of who to blame for this decline. Millions of people have been manipulated by politicians and media into mistakenly believing that their loss of hope was somehow the fault of the EU and immigrants. This was also wrapped around repetitive jingoistic messages about the pre-EU days of war and British Empire delusion. These messages have been hammered home by the Tories and right-wing media outlets for over 30 years. And sadly, it has worked. Millions of people think that because of foreign incomers or foreign interference, they and their country have lost control. They have been told to take back control. There has been a huge diffusion from the usual suspects in politics and media to demonise the likes of the EU and immigrants to deflect from the failures of government. It is psychological projection. It is a gigantic con-trick.

The Romanians didn’t do this to you. Jean-Claude Juncker didn’t go this to you. Muslims didn’t do this to you. But I bloody well know who did do this to you. Repeatedly. You know, the ones who wear blue rosettes on election day; who wear bespoke pinstripe suits in parliament; who have exceedingly good manners and faux-politeness and who many people in Britain have a peculiar trait of forelock tugging towards. It is all a giant act of Tory manipulation. See through their veneer and the optics aren’t particularly pleasant. They are the ones that shafted this country. Not a Bulgarian immigrant looking for a better life.

Behind Brexit lies this harsh fact: 17.4 million people with good intentions were hoodwinked by a bunch of political chancers who conned a nation to enable them to further their career or feather their own nests (or the pound shorting nests of whatever hedge fund manager chum they happen to have an association with).

Brexit is part of a 30 year planned heist designed for us to vote against our best interests. And tragically, millions of people still won’t realise or admit this and continue to blame the wrong things. If you voted for Brexit, you may well have had good reason; employment, working conditions, housing, education – but I doubt you voted for what is actually happening now. The result is that Britain’s political system is being dismantled to the advantage of the very rich and powerful and to the detriment of the vast majority of UK citizens. This pattern has been continuing for over 30 years, and still millions of voters look in the wrong direction of blame.

As so it is. The great con that wrecked Britain has three parts to the story: Part 1. Thatcherism Part 2. Austerity

Political outcomes that have conned a nation have led to disaster capitalism and we are about to experience what that is like at the very sharp end of its next and final phase: Part 3: Brexit

[Alf]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

There is no shame in being conned; it's happened to all of us at some point, whether in a relationship, or buying a product, but these folks pretend they weren't conned because they never believed the lies they were told to begin with, but then can't tell you why brexit is a good idea and how it will benefit them and their families.

I've tried talking to these people, but ultimately they just don't want to say publicly that they're willing to force pain on the country because they want to stick it to immigrants. When the facts and costs to the country don't make them pause for a second, then it shows it's purely an ideological pursuit.

It doesn't matter what people tell you, you can't accept the answers anyway, whatever they say. You've already proved that you can't accept what the people decide.

You'd rather ignore and overturn the democratic decision of the people of the United Kingdom for your own ideological pursuit.

Every voter that voted in the referendum did so in good faith that the result would be implemented, so you're not just trying make leavers votes worthless, you're also arguing in favour of making your own vote worthless.

Trust the people.

[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Alf

It doesn't matter what people tell you, you can't accept the answers anyway, whatever they say. You've already proved that you can't accept what the people decide.

You'd rather ignore and overturn the democratic decision of the people of the United Kingdom for your own ideological pursuit.

Every voter that voted in the referendum did so in good faith that the result would be implemented, so you're not just trying make leavers votes worthless, you're also arguing in favour of making your own vote worthless.

Trust the people.

And here we go again; no reasons just blame about not accepting brexit. It's the brexit government that have been unable to give you brexit, it has nothing to do with any remainer. For the 500th time, the reason they haven't given you a brexit yet, is because they know as soon as any plans are made concrete, they instantly show we'll be far worse off. That's why no deal is so fashionable these days, because it doesn't need to be explained.

People like me keep explaining the issues and problems, people like you keep going on about accepting a 3yr old referendum that has absolutely nothing to do with anything. If the government had gotten an acceptable deal, we'd already be out and it would still have been absolutely nothing to do with remainers.

[Kizzy]

@JasonGroves1

Trade Sec Liz Truss tells

@Emmabarnett

the Cabinet has no idea how Boris Johnson will keep his pledge to leave the EU on Oct 31 if he can't get a deal: 'I don't know, and if I did I wouldn't tell you.

No don't tell us...its not like it will affect our entire lives or owt...stupid bint!

[Twosugars]

I trust the 48 percent

[The Slim Reaper]

Good for british workers...

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

Good for british workers...

Did she really say that?

[Alf]

Originally Posted by Twosugars

I trust the 48 percent

I trust the 100 percent who voted.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

Good for british workers...

I said this from day dot. ... This whole brexit charade was to break away from democracy, it's screamingly obvious :/

[Twosugars]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Did she really say that?

She did, stupid cow

[Twosugars]

Johnson and his followers have mislaid a vision and picked up a process instead. “Get Brexit Done”, the slogan on every placard, is no more a goal than “chop an onion” is a meal. Brexit will not be “done” by the end of next month – it will be a slow, painstaking torture of trading negotiations that will take a decade or more to complete

The Guardian

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Twosugars

She did, stupid cow

Oh that's the same woman who wanted to starve the ROI into agreeing to losing the backstop, makes sense

[The Slim Reaper]

These are the folks that working class Britons are putting their faith in.

To be fair to Priti, I can't find her with a direct quote saying "leaving the eu would be an opportunity to cut EU social and employment protections"

I have found her making the same exact points though, so I'm guessing they've rounded a few things up to fit it on to a pic like this.

[Twosugars]

The whole brexit project is about getting rid of those pesky eu regulations on tax havens, workers rights and environment
Making disaster capitalists feel at home here

[Alf]

Priti is very pretty so she's already 1-0 up on Abbott for a start, that's before we even get to the rest of the stuff.

[joeysteele]

I would trust the 48% who voted remain obviously, however I agree we need to leave from the referendum vote.
In addition to trusting the 48% though, I would also trust the I think likely, the large proportion of leave voters too, who likely never expected, wanted or even voted for a ' no deal' exit.

[Twosugars]

Originally Posted by Alf

Priti is very pretty so she's already 1-0 up on Abbott for a start, that's before we even get to the rest of the stuff.

An argument out of the trump book of childish taunting: my wife is prettier than yours therefore I'm right

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

https://politics-punked.com/2019/10/...british-heist/

Brexit means…taking back control of the things we haven’t lost, to lose control of the things we already have.

As a middle aged man, I am beginning to fall into the trap of yearning nostalgia for my youth. I now think that the good old days were better than today. The music was certainly better in my day, as was Scottish football. But the reason I have a yearning nostalgia for the bygone days of yore is the exact opposite of why many people people voted for Brexit, I am wistful for a time when British people wanted to be part of some sort of liberal internationalism with our European neighbours through the common market. I am also wistful for the day when foreigners were made welcome rather than seen as some sort of existential threat. But nostalgia is a powerful emotion. It needs to be harnessed correctly rather than exploited. And right now, nostalgia is being harnessed and exploited by all the wrong people.

Many Leave voters voted to make things better. Many people who voted for Brexit did so for emotional reasons connected to hope. Leave voters wanted to jump into a time machine back to a Utopian Britain that may or may not have existed. Back to a time and place where Britain was a country full of hope.

Hope is a powerful thing. Politicians ruthlessly exploit it. And with Brexit, it has been exploited to such a degree, it has become a political sting. Brexit is the greatest political heist that Britain has ever seen. A gigantic con led by a group of right-wing libertarians who have exploited the hopes of millions of people to convince them that they were taking back control, when in fact, they were giving the control away to the people who conned them. So instead of making things better, Brexit will make things a lot worse. Britain will become a place where the hope becomes hopeless.

Many Leave voters feel disenfranchised. I get that. They are right to feel that. But they wrongly believe that the EU is to blame. The tragedy of Brexit is that the EU isn’t the source of problems facing Britain. Instead, decades of UK government failure are the true problem. Failed economic policy. Failed industrial strategy (or lack of). Failed regional regeneration. Failed social policy. All of which have created a society where the rich get richer and our communities and public services pay the price.

The hollowing out of Britain’s industrial communities and rampant privatisation by the Tories in the 1980s sowed the seeds of Brexit. It led to a giant fire sale of British industry, creating huge regional inequality and many of our communities have never recovered. Our industrial heartlands were decimated. Towns became rust belts. In the years since the mid 1980s, to put it mildly, the pendulum of hope has swung away from millions of people.

Fast forward 20 years. The financial crisis of 2008. I don’t remember a nurse, doctor, teacher, police officer or local council causing this crisis, yet, they were the ones who ultimately paid the price for unethical gluttony in our financial services industry. What followed the financial crisis was a decade of austerity with the destruction of many public services and a drop in real wages that created a new generation of poverty, a million visitors a year to food banks and a whole new cycle of resentment and the destruction of hope.

For four decades, millions of people within communities right across the country have seen a decline in their social fabric. The key community frameworks of a happy and stable society have been dismantled, defunded or sold off. It has made many people unhappy, disenfranchised and understandably, wanting something or someone to blame.

Sadly, it appears that many people have lost sight of the root cause of who to blame for this decline. Millions of people have been manipulated by politicians and media into mistakenly believing that their loss of hope was somehow the fault of the EU and immigrants. This was also wrapped around repetitive jingoistic messages about the pre-EU days of war and British Empire delusion. These messages have been hammered home by the Tories and right-wing media outlets for over 30 years. And sadly, it has worked. Millions of people think that because of foreign incomers or foreign interference, they and their country have lost control. They have been told to take back control. There has been a huge diffusion from the usual suspects in politics and media to demonise the likes of the EU and immigrants to deflect from the failures of government. It is psychological projection. It is a gigantic con-trick.

The Romanians didn’t do this to you. Jean-Claude Juncker didn’t go this to you. Muslims didn’t do this to you. But I bloody well know who did do this to you. Repeatedly. You know, the ones who wear blue rosettes on election day; who wear bespoke pinstripe suits in parliament; who have exceedingly good manners and faux-politeness and who many people in Britain have a peculiar trait of forelock tugging towards. It is all a giant act of Tory manipulation. See through their veneer and the optics aren’t particularly pleasant. They are the ones that shafted this country. Not a Bulgarian immigrant looking for a better life.

Behind Brexit lies this harsh fact: 17.4 million people with good intentions were hoodwinked by a bunch of political chancers who conned a nation to enable them to further their career or feather their own nests (or the pound shorting nests of whatever hedge fund manager chum they happen to have an association with).

Brexit is part of a 30 year planned heist designed for us to vote against our best interests. And tragically, millions of people still won’t realise or admit this and continue to blame the wrong things. If you voted for Brexit, you may well have had good reason; employment, working conditions, housing, education – but I doubt you voted for what is actually happening now. The result is that Britain’s political system is being dismantled to the advantage of the very rich and powerful and to the detriment of the vast majority of UK citizens. This pattern has been continuing for over 30 years, and still millions of voters look in the wrong direction of blame.

As so it is. The great con that wrecked Britain has three parts to the story: Part 1. Thatcherism Part 2. Austerity

Political outcomes that have conned a nation have led to disaster capitalism and we are about to experience what that is like at the very sharp end of its next and final phase: Part 3: Brexit

..I think this bit is quite true...

For four decades, millions of people within communities right across the country have seen a decline in their social fabric. The key community frameworks of a happy and stable society have been dismantled, defunded or sold off. It has made many people unhappy, disenfranchised and understandably, wanting something or someone to blame

..it’s sad and ironic that the things that have been looked at as the causes of the discontent and disenfranchisement are the very things that will become more and more a reality through our Brexit years...as we watch our NHS dissolve and become privatised...

[Tom4784]

It's honestly sad how much Brexiters who will be affected negatively by the kind of Brexit Boris wants are spreading their cheeks for him regardless. Brexit as a whole is just an exercise in giving the elite a tax break. Brexiters are just little ants doing their best on behalf of their overlords who placate them with bull**** about immigrants and slogans on buses.

[Twosugars]

Originally Posted by joeysteele

I would trust the 48% who voted remain obviously, however I agree we need to leave from the referendum vote.
In addition to trusting the 48% though, I would also trust the I think likely, the large proportion of leave voters too, who likely never expected, wanted or even voted for a ' no deal' exit.

Tbh I think we will leave. Can't see eu wanting us back after what has transpired about this country in the last three years.
UK needs to experience being outside and standing on it's own two feet for those deluded english imperialists to get a dose of reality.
Let's wait for the old xenophobes to die out and the new generation can rejoin eu in their own time.

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

These are the folks that working class Britons are putting their faith in.

To be fair to Priti, I can't find her with a direct quote saying "leaving the eu would be an opportunity to cut EU social and employment protections"

I have found her making the same exact points though, so I'm guessing they've rounded a few things up to fit it on to a pic like this.

...I don’t know which quotes she personally made...but didn’t five or six MP’s write a report or paper, which included those quotes, along with others that painted British workers as really not great at all...in their eyes...

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Alf

Priti is very pretty so she's already 1-0 up on Abbott for a start, that's before we even get to the rest of the stuff.

what really matter in politics eh?

[Twosugars]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

It's honestly sad how much Brexiters who will be affected negatively by the kind of Brexit Boris wants are spreading their cheeks for him regardless. Brexit as a whole is just an exercise in giving the elite a tax break. Brexiters are just little ants doing their best on behalf of their overlords who placate them with bull**** about immigrants and slogans on buses.

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

https://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/201...ecency-no-hope

It was only moments into his speech that Boris Johnson started lying. "We will under no circumstances," he said, "have checks at or near the border in Northern Ireland." It was false. Overnight, the details of his Brexit proposals to Brussels had leaked. They showed that there clearly would be checks. The British commitment to preventing any customs infrastructure in Ireland would be broken.

Once upon a time, Johnson could make these claims because he was engaged in the magical thinking of 'frictionless trade' and 'alternative arrangements'. There's no excuse for that now.

The Johnson offer to the EU will be published this afternoon, but last night's leak by the Telegraph's Peter Foster was largely corroborated by the details the prime minister offered in his speech. It works by separating out two elements of a future trading relationship: customs and regulations.

Customs involves the assessment of tariffs on goods. Regulations involve checks on whether the goods comply with the rules of the country they're being sent to. In the EU, none of this matters - you have the same tariff regime and the same rules. Outside the EU, it all needs to be checked.

Johnson's plan sets up two timetables - one for customs and one for regulations.

The customs timetable kicks in first. His deal, like Theresa May's, would have a short transition until 2021. But after that, Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain would leave the customs union with no backstop. Johnson is taking no prisoners here. He is refusing any concessions. The lock keeping Northern Ireland attached to the Republic is gone. That means checks.

How would Johnson try to avoid them? He plans to have a free trade agreement (FTA) with the EU. But that's extremely unlikely to be achieved by 2021. Free trade agreements between major partners take a long time. The one between the EU and Canada took seven years.

But even if he did manage it, there would still be checks. FTAs can hammer down tariffs between countries. But even when that's done, goods have to go through a laborious process of checks, called country of origin requirements, to ensure they're really from the state they're being sent from. This is so that other countries can't surreptitiously sneak their way in with no tariffs as part of a trade deal they didn't negotiate.

The government rubbished a previous leak this week which said there'd be customs posts on either side of the border to do these sorts of checks. But actually it seems inevitable that there will be. Their promises to the contrary are meaningless. They rely on the idea that new technology will magically be invented in the next two years to make them unnecessary. This will not happen. It is one of the great myths of the Brexit argument.

This plan is a complete rejection of the British government's commitment in the December 2017 joint report to avoid a hard border, or any physical infrastructure, or checks or controls. It goes against the promises made to the people of the island on both sides - the Republic, which had no say in all this, and Northern Ireland, which voted against it. There is no consent from these communities for these proposals. They have made clear they are against what they propose. Johnson wants to impose it on them regardless. It is a threat to the peace process. It is a betrayal of the promise of continued north-south cooperation. It is a complete and total abdication of moral responsibility.

The approach to regulations seemingly involves more concessions. Northern Ireland would remain aligned with the EU on agricultural and industrial goods regulations. This is dynamic, meaning that as the EU updated its rules, they would update theirs.

On the face of it, this seems significant. It would involve checks on the Irish sea between Britain and Northern Ireland, which is the kind of thing the DUP - whose votes Johnson would need to get a deal through - vociferously objects to.

But there's a catch. The alignment only lasts until 2025. At that point Northern Ireland gets a say on what happens. Does it want to stay aligned to the EU rules or join the rest of the UK? In practice, this gives the DUP a veto, which they will invariable use. The language is democratic, but in reality it simply serves to stagger the regulatory departure.

It's quite a remarkably tone-deaf package. Basically the UK is taking a bullying position to the EU without having anything to bully them with.

Think about their incentives. This is the kind of thing which essential to successful negotiation but which the Johnson administration is seemingly incapable of.

If Brussels accepted the package, Ireland would be thrown under the bus. It would be a complete betrayal, something they have made clear they would never do.

That's not just a moral point. It is a strategic one. If they go against Ireland, no other member state would trust them again. The offer the EU makes to countries - that they become stronger by working together - would be shown to be false.

So why do it? Johnson is presumably gambling on the fact that if they reject it they'd face no-deal, which would involve the border emerging immediately, without the lead-in to 2021 or 2025.

But this assessment is very weak, because the moral reality of that point is inverted. If the UK decides to leave without a deal, then the consequences are its responsibility. But if the EU signed up to this deal, then it shares that responsibility. And on the areas it cares about - checks on the border, north-south cooperation - those consequences would be equivalent to no-deal.

Such a move would also destroy the EU's credibility in negotiations around the world. It would be seen to buckle on all its key demands in the face of intransigence and threats. Why wouldn't other negotiating partners try the same trick?

But even aside from all that, the threat is empty because no-deal is not actually the consequence of the EU rejection of the deal. The Benn Act ensures that if there is no deal he must ask for an extension. He insists this is not true and that No.10 has found some kind of loophole in the legislation. Given his record, that is likely to be either false or a gross overstatement of some pitifully weak tactic. But even if it were true, parliament could work around it or see Johnson forced to retreat via the courts.

So the EU's incentives are not his deal or no-deal. They are his deal or extension. And extension opens up the possibility of a less insane negotiating team, or even another referendum with a result to Remain, making the whole border problem go away.

It's hard to come up with anything positive to say about this. It shows no understanding of the EU's red lines, no basic moral responsibility towards the problem in Ireland which the Brexit vote created, no consistency with the previous commitments of the British government, no viability, no practicality, no realism, and no concessions at all to the half of the population who voted Remain. It is almost impressive that after all this time they have come up with a proposal that has nothing whatsoever to recommend it.

.....