Isn’t it time for the EU to move and get creative on Brexit?

It’s August. You don’t need another long essay on Brexit, examining why X said that Y is furious with Z because everyone is confused by Dominic Cummings and his t-shirts. And at this rate the non-existent Brexit talks about the WA will result in SFA leading to the fall of Boris and his replacement with a government of national unity, with a Prime Minister of national unity chosen by Andrew Adonis, who is leaning towards making it Sir John Major, or Ken Dodd, or Sweep from Sooty and Sweep.

You don’t have time for any of that rubbish, and neither do I. There will be plenty of time for that rubbish in September.

So, I’ll restrict this relatively short Brexit piece to a brief observation about the state of the situation and ask: isn’t it time for the EU to be a bit creative and move to avoid no deal?

Yes, sure. I hear you, my ultra-remainer friends. The mighty EU is brilliant and silly Britain is rubbish, and we started it, and so on.

But the EU seems frozen, and incapable of acknowledging what has happened in the last few months.

1) Its sainted deal led to the defenestration and removal of a British Prime Minister.

2) The person who did the deal is gone.

3) The deal with the EU was defeated heavily three times and the best anyone can say about a new attempt is that maybe on a good day, if 30 Labour MPs see sense and back a deal, and Mark “Penfold” Francois of the ERG is held hostage in a cupboard by the new chief whip, or by Dangermouse himself, Jacob Rees-Mogg, then the deal might – might! – pass by a vote or two. But it probably won’t. Knowing this, Boris needs serious movement from the EU or it’s no deal and war with the parliamentary Remainers.

This is the new situation. The person who negotiated the deal got the sack. The new Tory hire says he’ll go for no deal. He seems prepared to fight parliament and hold an election on the question.

This new British government – that’s what it is – has chosen a “do or die” route to leaving on October 31st. But the EU says it will not reopen the Withdrawal Agreement, which contains the backstop.

Believe it or not, I can see in theory why the EU isn’t moving. The 27 have stuck together and have negotiated brilliantly against the Brits. The British swallowed the EU’s sequencing. Originally, the EU position was that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” and the EU turned that into the following deal: Agree to the Withdrawal Agreement, in return for some vague rubbish about the future trade deal, oh and here’s a binding clause you can never get out of called the backstop which is really about the future, but we’ve put it in the WA anyway. Love EU!

This was very clever, only up to a point. The EU’s deal only continues to be brilliant and clever, up to the point that it fails and leads to no deal. Yes, that is worse for the British, but it is not a good outcome for the EU either.

Britain is not lovely Greece. Britain is Europe’s main security and intelligence power. It is second in NATO. The City is Europe’s financial centre, eclipsing rivals by miles.

A deal between the EU and the UK that can pass parliament is, in these circumstances, a sensible idea. No?

That being the case, I say this politely, isn’t it time for the EU to give its negotiators a new mandate and sanction a little creativity? The history of international diplomacy is strewn with examples of resets, overhauls and hypocritical chicanery when the regimes change or circumstances demand it.

I’m deeply fatalistic about the EU doing this. But it’s worth raising. Unless the EU wants no deal – and perhaps it now does – it needs to be magnanimous and move a little.