Sam Goldwyn warned: 'Never make predictions, especially about the future', and making predictions about Boris Johnson is especially hazardous because you can't believe a word he says (see my post of 5 January).
According to the crankish game theories of Johnson, or perhaps more important - Cummings, the UK will get a good deal only if the EU believes it is serious about 'walking away' from negotiations and settling for 'no deal'. (Though the consequences of no deal are now so widely recognised to be disastrous that Johnson-Cummings have had to try to rebadge it as an 'Australia-type' deal.)
There is no evidence that the EU are in the slightest degree impressed by this nonsense, but plenty that it keeps the more fanatically anti-EU element among Johnson-Cummings' supporters happy.
Nye Bevan asked: 'Why look in the crystal ball, when you can read the book?' And we have already seen Johnson-Cummings with their backs against the wall during the negotiations. They also threatened to walk away during the Withdrawal Agreement talks, but in the end they signed up to whatever the EU demanded, including things like a border in the Irish Sea that Theresa May had rejected. They and their nodding dogs then claimed this was a great victory.
Johnson-Cummings' attempt to renege on that agreement may mean that an even more humiliating climbdown will be required to get a deal on the future relationship, as the EU is probably unlikely to take much on trust from now on. But with a mendacious right-wing press still highly compliant on Brexit, if not on Covid, Johnson may still be calculating that he can repeat his earlier trick: surrender, then claim victory, while his media accomplices play along.
So, if I was forced to predict an outcome, it would be this one, though I wouldn't bet much on it. I'll be examining other possibilities over the coming weeks.
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