Back business or fuck business, prime minister? The fact she won’t condemn Johnson, let alone sack him, shows us whose side she’s on #PMQs
May’s absurd attack on Corbyn over Heathrow shows her desperation. Only one of them is threatening the collapse of aviation - the apparently ‘pro-business’ PM, whose threat of a no-deal would end flights to the EU and scrap tens of thousands of jobs overnight #PMQs
May is a hide-behind-sofa embarrassment. Can’t answer a single question on Brexit or how she’ll defend a single job. She’s either lying through her teeth or submerged in delusion. Either way, her policy will kill more jobs and communities than Thatcher could have dreamed of #PMQs
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‘Compromise has become a dirty word,’ laments the woman who transformed a 51.9-48.1% decision to leave the treaties of the EU into a mandate to excise us from the basic instruments underpinning our economy
Now she says ‘we shouldn’t be in thrall to ideology’. She is literally prepared to ground aircraft and cancel radiotherapy so she can unilaterally alter New Zealand’s dairy tariffs
The woman now has the gall to celebrate the Windrush generation she was until a few months ago happy to deport
Well, whaddaya know! After 18 months of Brexiters endlessly telling us we’re lying & fear-mongering, gov’s just confirmed that, as things stand, air services between UK and EU stop the day after no-deal kicks in.
Brexiters have been lying through their teeth. Do spread the word.
There’s more. Here gov confirms aviation with 17 other countries comes under EU deals. All gov says is that it’s ‘confident’ replacement agreements will be agreed. Which, I’m sure you’ll agree coming from this famously dependable and competent government, is extremely reassuring
But clincher is buried here. As we keep saying, it’s not just about bilateral permission. It’s about EU safety certification disappearing the second we crash out of European Aviation Safety Agency. Gov confirms it’s powerless to ensure replacements. We are entirely at EU’s mercy.
That means we’re now switching to Irish Sea. How to reconcile May’s talk of no new economic barriers within UK and EU’s need to protect both its own economic integrity and the open border in Ireland? Provided EU gets both those assured, it can try to accommodate some UK anxieties
Although Barnier being coy, clincher is customs union. Namely, NI must retain same tariffs as Ireland. That means there must be some tariff collection between GB & NI, and NI must be exempt from UK’s new trade deals. Or whole UK stays in customs union. I don’t see any other way.
In a just world, Johnson would be permanently ignored and left to fester in the sewer of his own mind. But this isn’t a just world. So let’s highlight simply one passage from his odious screed in today’s Mail on Sunday.
1/ Johnson complains gov was ‘mad to agree’ backstop. HE WAS LITERALLY FOREIGN SECRETARY. And stayed a further 7 months. Why not resign immediately? Either he didn’t care; didn’t understand it; or didn’t have any influence. Any of which, on its own, renders him unfit for office.
2/ Johnson both twists the meaning of the backstop and implicitly dismisses reasons for having it.
Summary: backstop does not mean Northern Ireland ‘remains in EU’. It means that Northern Ireland remains in peace. Free trade agreements are not more important than Irish lives.
The government has zombified its Brexit position but clutches the corpse: I tell Vanessa Feltz on BBC Radio London why May and Johnson’s fight is an embarrassing side-show, and why Chequers is still eye-wateringly dead
Boris Johnson is right that Chequers gives us less control than we have now, but UK government is out of options. No-deal can’t happen; that means a deal will; and the EU has no incentive to budge. We know how this story ends
Meanwhile, Macron has said he doesn’t want a ‘blind Brexit’. I explain what that is and why there’s a strong chance we won’t get it anyway, thanks to implicit demands of Irish backstop. Vanessa was also good enough to correct my #AccidentalPartridge when I misquoted Dylan Thomas
.@NickBoles on @IainDale’s new LBC being absolutely bizarre on his plan for ditching the transition in favour of temporary EEA and customs union. Some questions:
1. Why would the EU or UK agree to two changes of rules - one for the interim EEA, one for the final deal - when both have already ruled such a solution out? Why would business welcome the cost and bureaucracy of two sets of rule changes?
2. We will not have a future deal in place by March, which is why all sides have agreed on a status quo transition. EEA doesn’t give any bespoke deal on agri or fisheries. How are you going to defend your plan to British farmers who will see regulatory checks on their produce?