“Complete baloney, absolute baloney.” Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was in America again this week to tell those he still thinks of as our transatlantic cousins that there’s no way – I mean, no way – the European Union can freeze us out of the single market unless we accept the free movement of labour.
The question is, how the Hell would he know? He clearly doesn’t listen to anything the Europeans say. It doesn’t matter how often they repeat that there can be no single market membership without free movement, Boris dismisses their message as no more than a cheap negotiating ploy.
He seems to believe that the Brexit talks, when they finally kick off, will be a breeze, a doddle, a walk in the park. In fact, he has said so, many times.
Listen to what he told the Americans:
“What we’re doing is talking to our European friends and partners now in the expectation that by the early part of next year you will see an Article 50 letter. We will invoke that and in that letter I’m sure we will be setting out some parameters for how we propose to take this forward.”
In other words, Britain will set the rules and the EU will string along.
But he wasn’t finished. “I don’t actually think we will necessarily need to spend a full two years [negotiating], but let’s see how we go.”
No bother, then. We simply press the starting leaver next spring and – Boom! – it will all be over by Christmas.
According to Boris, it is in the “overwhelming interest” of the EU to do a deal with the UK that allows us to control our borders while still having a free trade deal with the Continent.
“We are going to benefit from the fantastic opportunities for greater free trade with our friends in the EU. It’s overwhelmingly in their interest to do that.”
And why, exactly?
“Not only do we buy more German cars than anybody else, we drink more Italian wine than any other country in Europe, 300 million litres of Prosecco every year. They’re not going to put that at risk.”
So the reason our case is so strong is that the pesky Europeans have consistently sold us a lot more than we have ever managed to sell them. To misquote the Book of Judges (and Tate & Lyle’s Golden Syrup), out of the strong comes forth weakness.
Yes, but could there perhaps be a hitch, a hiccough, a spanner in the works somewhere along the line?  Well, maybe. “Of course, [shakes jowls] we need a proper deal for our financial services industries. We need to sort out the question of free movement. But it’s all doable.”
Brilliant! In a throwaway line, he dismisses the two issues that will without question dominate the many months, running into years, of hard talking that lie ahead for both sides post-Article 50. Passport rights for the City of London to ensure that Britain, outside the euro and outside the Union, remains the lynchpin of EU financial services? The abandonment by the EU of one of its fundamental four freedoms? All doable. Just leave it to Boris.
Which brings us back to the baloney. Never mind that the President of the European Parliament says that under no circumstances would he back a deal that allowed Britain to remain part of the single market without accepting free movement. Forget the fact that Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary say they will veto any deal that limits the right of their people to work in the UK. Ignore the reality that Frankfurt and Paris are openly competing for the right to take over from London as Europe’s financial powerhouse.
None of that matters.
For it’s not what they (all 450 million of them) expect, or will demand, from us, it’s what we are prepared to give them – free access for 300 million litres of Prosecco. Boris Johnson, an ineffective London mayor, who switched from Remain to Leave to boost his chances of taking over from David Cameron (a bid he spectacularly botched), says that he and his close colleagues David Davis and Liam Fox (neither of whom likes or trusts him) will wrap up Brexit in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.
I don’t know why we don’t just send Brussels a note warning them that in the event of fog the Continent could be cut off.
