Blustering Boris doesn’t like talking about the trick that swept him into power.
His officials even banned the word Brexit from official communications. The job is done, he thinks.
Oh no, it isn’t. It’s only half-done, if that.
Legally and constitutionally we have left the European Union, but we are a very long way from charting a new relationship with our biggest trading partner.
While we’re still “in transition” and accepting EU rules, negotiations are under way.
They are due to conclude by the end of the year, and in Prime Minister’s Questions, Johnson ruled out any extension of the deadline.
But the talks are stalled over UK strategy – standing firm or intransigence, depending on your point of view.
Our government insists that we are now an independent, sovereign state, free to do whatever we like.
The EU of 27 nations demands that we must closely align with their way of doing things – if we want zero-tariff trading. Brussels chief Michel Barnier will today brief the European Parliament on the stalemate.
This fight is coming down to Boris versus Barnier, the irresistible farce meeting the immovable object.
And Downing Street has floated a new hurdle: fear that extending negotiations would embroil us in EU legislation to counteract the coronavirus.
This manufactured threat is yet another fig-leaf behind which to hide the Tory Brexiteers’ true intention – leaving Europe without an agreement, whatever the cost to jobs and businesses.
That’s the goal of the Eurohaters, led by Mr Rentagob, Iain Duncan Smith.
Hundreds of civil servants are engaged in “virtual talks” across the Channel, with only weeks before a draft deal should be in place.
Our ministers have yet to get off their ample backsides, so there’s zero prospect of meeting the timetable for agreement.
Whether you think that’s a good thing or a bad thing, at least the politicians should be straight with us.
