"Boris Johnson starts this next phase of the Conservative leadership contest with the UK media asking questions about his private life.
But while those questions are unlikely to go away any time soon, they must not distract from the other big issue facing Mr Johnson. This is the difficulty many people have understanding his recent statements on Brexit.
Much of what Mr Johnson has said on Brexit over the past few days is either ambiguous or inaccurate — and has been exposed as such by critics.
Three points in particular are coming under attack.
First, Mr Johnson states that reaching a revised deal with the EU on Brexit is “eminently feasible” by October 31. This is not the case — certainly not if Mr Johnson tries to achieve anything beyond a cosmetic revision of the Political Declaration. The timetable at Westminster and Brussels will not allow anything substantial to be agreed by the October 31 deadline.
Second, Mr Johnson believes that Britain can leave the EU without a deal but this won’t be too bad because the UK will simply go on to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement during the “implementation period”.
As Mr Johnson says in a campaign video explaining his no-deal strategy: “You disaggregate the elements of the otherwise defunct Withdrawal Agreement . . . And then of course you solve the problem of free movement of goods across the Irish and Northern Irish and other borders to where they logically belong, and that is in the context of the Free Trade Agreement that we’ll negotiate in the implementation period, after we’ve come out on October 31.”
But as David Lidington, in effect deputy prime minister, tweeted at the weekend: “Erm, the Implementation Period is actually part of the Withdrawal Agreement. It’s in Part 4 of the Agreement, articles 126 to 132. No Deal exit = no Withdrawal Agreement = no Implementation Period.”
Third, Mr Johnson believes that if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, it can make unilateral use of Article 24 of the GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade] to ensure that the UK and EU do not mutually levy tariffs on each other.
As he told a BBC leadership debate: “There will be no tariffs, there will be no quotas, because what we want to do is to get a standstill in our current arrangements under GATT 24, or whatever it happens to be, until such a time as we have negotiated the [long-term trade deal with the EU].”
But this opinion has been rejected outright by Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England; Liam Fox, the international trade secretary; and Geoffrey Cox, the attorney-general who actually supports the Johnson campaign.
All three have made clear that in a no-deal scenario, WTO rules dictate that the UK would have to impose the same tariffs on goods from the EU as from other countries around the world — and vice versa.
It is little wonder that Mr Johnson avoids a one-on-one debate with his rival Jeremy Hunt. Mr Hunt would certainly want to expose the holes in Mr Johnson’s statements, forcing him on to different ground.
Any shift, meanwhile, would threaten to undermine the other feature of Mr Johnson’s campaign: the fact that he unites an unsustainable coalition of supporters.
From George Osborne to Jacob Rees-Mogg, from Matt Hancock to Mark Francois, this is a coalition whose members have diametrically opposed views on Brexit. It might well unravel if Mr Johnson starts having to explain himself."
By James Blitz
June 24, 2019
But while those questions are unlikely to go away any time soon, they must not distract from the other big issue facing Mr Johnson. This is the difficulty many people have understanding his recent statements on Brexit.
Much of what Mr Johnson has said on Brexit over the past few days is either ambiguous or inaccurate — and has been exposed as such by critics.
Three points in particular are coming under attack.
First, Mr Johnson states that reaching a revised deal with the EU on Brexit is “eminently feasible” by October 31. This is not the case — certainly not if Mr Johnson tries to achieve anything beyond a cosmetic revision of the Political Declaration. The timetable at Westminster and Brussels will not allow anything substantial to be agreed by the October 31 deadline.
Second, Mr Johnson believes that Britain can leave the EU without a deal but this won’t be too bad because the UK will simply go on to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement during the “implementation period”.
As Mr Johnson says in a campaign video explaining his no-deal strategy: “You disaggregate the elements of the otherwise defunct Withdrawal Agreement . . . And then of course you solve the problem of free movement of goods across the Irish and Northern Irish and other borders to where they logically belong, and that is in the context of the Free Trade Agreement that we’ll negotiate in the implementation period, after we’ve come out on October 31.”
But as David Lidington, in effect deputy prime minister, tweeted at the weekend: “Erm, the Implementation Period is actually part of the Withdrawal Agreement. It’s in Part 4 of the Agreement, articles 126 to 132. No Deal exit = no Withdrawal Agreement = no Implementation Period.”
Third, Mr Johnson believes that if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, it can make unilateral use of Article 24 of the GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade] to ensure that the UK and EU do not mutually levy tariffs on each other.
As he told a BBC leadership debate: “There will be no tariffs, there will be no quotas, because what we want to do is to get a standstill in our current arrangements under GATT 24, or whatever it happens to be, until such a time as we have negotiated the [long-term trade deal with the EU].”
But this opinion has been rejected outright by Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England; Liam Fox, the international trade secretary; and Geoffrey Cox, the attorney-general who actually supports the Johnson campaign.
All three have made clear that in a no-deal scenario, WTO rules dictate that the UK would have to impose the same tariffs on goods from the EU as from other countries around the world — and vice versa.
It is little wonder that Mr Johnson avoids a one-on-one debate with his rival Jeremy Hunt. Mr Hunt would certainly want to expose the holes in Mr Johnson’s statements, forcing him on to different ground.
Any shift, meanwhile, would threaten to undermine the other feature of Mr Johnson’s campaign: the fact that he unites an unsustainable coalition of supporters.
From George Osborne to Jacob Rees-Mogg, from Matt Hancock to Mark Francois, this is a coalition whose members have diametrically opposed views on Brexit. It might well unravel if Mr Johnson starts having to explain himself."
By James Blitz
June 24, 2019