More Grauny thinking aloud as Europe competes with Covid-19. Plebs need persuasion and firm handling as sanyone knows who has run a household:
This, for example is the carrot (eventually):
Team Johnson has always believed one of the mistakes Theresa May made in the drawn-out saga of Brexit negotiations was that despite repeatedly insisting, “No deal is better than a bad deal”, she never convinced the EU27 that she was willing to walk away, because, ultimately, she wasn’t.... the move is likely to be read in Brussels (and among Johnson’s own MPs) as part of the broader context – which is a government ready to play hardball. There are at least some good reasons to think this is partly theatre.
We could all see that, of course , despite efforts like the Graun's
“There’s a sense that the details of the protocol are mind-boggling – there are many competing interpretations,” said one source with knowledge of the government’s Brexit preparations....So part of what the government appears to be doing in the internal markets bill is legislating for its own preferred reading of the deal.
Gove, Johnson and Gisela Stuart – since ennobled [and not before time] – lined up at an election campaign event to tell ex-Labour voters that the ability to swiftly bail out struggling firms would be one of the advantages of leaving the EU.
This is dangerously close to admitting that the electorate was told about, voted for and is behind the move? Are these promises not sacred? Would the Graun prefer another U-turn?
But can't we trust the EC?
Yet Brussels-watchers say there is some flexibility in the EU’s stance on state aid, which is there to be exploited, if only the UK would publish its own proposals.
All liberals like a good stick to hand too:
The latest Brexit dispute could end up in the European court of justice if it breaches the withdrawal agreement signed by Boris Johnson in January, legal experts have warned....The court can impose a heavy fine on the UK, suspend part of the withdrawal agreement, launch trade wars and impose tariffs or even sanctions on British exports.
One of m'learned remainers says it all depends how you interpret Article 5, which the Graunu helpfully reprints, seemingly designed to identify goods at risk of entering the Republic, and thus the EU from NI
[The EC] wants ministers in London to draw up the list of the goods “at risk” of going on to the republic, thus minimising the disruption in the internal British market....Sources say the EU’s working assumption is that all goods are at risk of going into the republic – even goods on Tesco shelves – because the region is so small.
Carrots and a stick then. That's what these simple Leaver idiots need!
Meanwhile Z Williams tries to rally her own side:
isn’t this sabre-rattling exactly what Boris Johnson always does, just ahead of a major climbdown? Isn’t this exactly what happened, at exactly this point last year: the blaring siren of an imminent no deal, followed by the bromance of Johnson and Leo Varadkar resolving their differences at the last minute? The panicky mood around disintegrating negotiations just doesn’t stand up once you look at the detail: on state aid, the last major stumbling block aside from fish, both sides are willing to compromise. Our prime minister, not being a details man himself, is hoping that his supporters share the same flaw and will take this theatre as fact....[All this]...may give fresh hope to opponents seeking to strategise against their nightmare Brexit
Thus reassured, the issue is one for meetings of the Labour Party in Islington:
How do we use our insights and their shortcomings to our advantage, to better oppose no deal, to forge a better Brexit and to reshape the narrative and the agenda?
It's all about narratives and agendas, as ever. Let's follow this a bit:
opposing [Brexit] is futile [yes -- it's happening] . No amount of sophisticated second-guessing will help us. The reason is not that the ardent Brexiters are cleverer or one step ahead, but rather that the project is oppositional in its DNA....This has always been a pugilistic movement, an attempt to transpose the implacable divisions of the cold war wholesale on to the fresh enemy of Europe. It has never had any interest in compromise, and consequently never had any use for reasoned analysis (or facts, or experts).... It was the behaviour of people for whom Brexit was only ever an instrument of cultural and constitutional discord.
That doesn’t mean it would have foundered without us, by the way; it would have simply manufactured division within its own ranks.
[Time to focus on what] we realised instinctively [ie did not actually say] on 24 June 2016 – if the fundamental purpose of Brexit is to move from a politics of consensus to one of division, opposing Brexit only makes the project stronger.... all of this analysis worked on the assumption that we existed in a good-faith political environment where rational arguments land, and where politicians consider the national interest, the optics and the wealth and wellbeing of the citizens. And even once these assumptions showed themselves to be wrong, we too often thought that pointing that out was a solid argument in itself
There is a masochistic resignation on the opposition benches, where MPs prove their realism and humility by accepting the inevitability of a Conservative government until 2024. This is strategically mistaken [Labour are going to overturn a majority of 80?] . But, more importantly, it is unpatriotic [see, you silly proles -- we are patriotic too] . ...The creation of perpetual crisis is the wellspring of this new breed of radical Conservative. It can only be quelled at its source [one strong leader to overcome all the turmoil and restore national unity? Emily Maitlis? ] , rather than lurched at, one catastrophe at a time.
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