Brexitwatch: WORLD EXCLUSIVE! that historic Johnson-Macron phone call.

 'Bonjour Emmanuel, j'ai un peu de difficulte, Brexit-wise, avec les tete-bangeurs de l'ERG.'

'Very good, mon ami, but let's parler anglais. You'll find it easier.'

'Right, well, look, You know that I know as well as you know that Brexit is a merde-show, and that no-deal is even merder. But if I do a deal, those ERG-ers are going to come looking for my guts pour faire les garters.'

'Ne t'inquiete pas. I have an idea. We give them a petite saveur.'

'Of what, French cooking? I can't see how that'll work. Still, I suppose anything's worth a try. But no garlic.'

'Non! Non! A petite saveur of no-deal!'

'You mean confront them with reality! Mmmm, never thought of that, but how?'

'Well. This new variety of the Covid virus that is making you British get your culotte un peu twiste par le present. What if I were to use that as an occasion pour fermer the border. Proteger la France! Take back control, as you might say.'

'Mmmmm, yes. Lorries grind to a halt, park on every verge and pavement in Kent, village gardens turned to public toilets, impenetrable tailbacks miles long! Any Brits not driven mad by Brexit might start wondering if the ERG-ers are barmy!'

'And the opposition to a deal va disparaitre dans les airs.'

 'Vanish into thin air! Like Brexit promises the morning after the referendum. Brilliant! Why hadn't I thought of that?'

'Do you want me to answer that question'

'Er, no. Tu m'as sauvee la vie! Ferme la porte, et les ports, of course. Merci, Emmanuel.'

'Je t'en prie. Bye, bye no-deal. Hello surrender, er, pardon, world-beating agreement. Au revoir.'

Brexitwatch: Boris Johnson - deal or no deal?

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.

Brexitwatch: this wasn't meant to happen Part 4: inside DUP headquarters

When the Good Friday Agreement was signed, people said: 'the Republicans are too clever to admit they've lost, and the Loyalists are too stupid to realise they've won'. This may appear to have been confirmed by the DUP's apparently foolish decision to support Brexit, which has done more damage to the Union in 4 years than the IRA managed in 30. Fortunately, I can reveal that all this is scurrilous nonsense thanks to a recording secretly made at DUP headquarters of a wide-ranging 58 second long debate on the stance the party should take in the Brexit referendum.

'Right. Next business. EU referendum. Leave or Remain?'

'How many Papists are there in the EU?'

'Er, millions, tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions.'

'Hmm. What are the Fenians going to do?'

'Sinn Fein? Oh. They're backing Remain.'

'Right. We back Leave.'

'Hang on, though under the GFA....

'GFA?'

'Good Friday Agreement.'

'Oh yes. I've got another name for it. Great Fuc....' 

[Loudly and hastily]. 'Yes thank you. Well the Good Friday Agreement only works if both Northern Ireland and the Republic are in the EU.....'

[Interrupts] So what are they saying on the Shankill?

'They tend to back Leave.'

'So Leave it is. Next business.'

'But hang on. If we leave the EU and "take back control of our borders", there'll have to be a border in Ireland between the UK and the EU. Now we can't have a land border because that would break the GFA, so that means a border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.'

'So?'

'That means the end of the Union! A de facto United Ireland.'

'No it won't.'

'What do you mean: "it won't".'

'It won't, because Leave won't win in a month of Sundays. Remain'll win, but we'll get credit for giving the Papist EU a kicking. Leave it is. Next business.'

Brexit and borders: a fantasy

One of the reasons our economy is being subjected to death by Brexit is, Theresa May and the Leave fanatics keep telling us, so that we can ‘take control of our borders’.

If we are foolish enough to leave the EU, the only land frontier between the UK and the EU will be the one between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. And how do the Brexiters propose to ‘take control’ of this border? By getting rid of it.

So while the Brexiters will proclaim they have slain the bete noire of Freedom of Movement in March 2019, any EU citizen who wants to enter the UK will simply have to go to the Irish Republic. Then they can take a bus, train, car, bicycle or just walk across the border into Northern Ireland and the UK is their oyster.

I heard some hapless government spokesman on the radio conceding that this was all true but saying it didn’t matter because the EU migrant would be detected by the authorities as soon as they tried to take a job or to rent a flat.

He wasn’t asked why then do we pay out millions and force people to wait in long queues to have their passports checked at Heathrow, other airports, ferry ports etc.

The Brexiters promised we could ‘take control’ of our borders but still have free movement between Northern Ireland and the Republic. (Anything else would probably wreck Northern Ireland's economy and its peace process.) Fourteen months after the referendum they still have no credible plan as to how this is to be achieved. 

And even if they had, there is no guarantee it would be acceptable to the EU.

Europe: stay or leave. Focus on fact - 9

At the centre of the Brexit campaign is the claim that we will 'take control' of our borders it we leave Europe.

Today's fact: The UK will NOT take control of its borders if we leave Europe.

If we leave, the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic will then become the border between the UK and the EU, and the Brexiters have promised it will remain as open as it is today. 

So any EU citizen who wants to enter the UK will simply have to take a bus or a train, or drive, cycle or walk across the border from the Republic into Northern Ireland on one of the hundreds of roads that cross it. There will be no customs, no checkpoints, no border controls.