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Boris sharpening his knife in the Telegraph.
I don’t know if there really is some genius in Tory HQ who wants to call an election this year, but if there is I would like to reach out to that person and shake them warmly by the throat. I have never heard such a ridiculous idea – and let me be clear that I do not say that because I have the slightest terror of the Labour opposition. Look at Corbyn: he is deteriorating before our eyes. Last week in Parliament he gave an absolute masterclass in the factionalism and sexism that are the hallmarks of the old Labour Left – petulantly refusing to take an intervention from a nice and hardworking Labour MP, Angela Smith, and making it abundantly clear that his boycott applied exclusively to her, as though she were some box of Israeli oranges. He couldn’t answer basic questions about his weird plan for Britain to leave the EU but remain in the customs union. Would we still sign up to the common customs code? Would we be able to do free trade deals? Would we be represented round the table in Brussels, and if so, how?
He was clueless and confused; and even if the Conservatives do not now luxuriate in the same kind of poll lead we had before the 2017 election – which did not go according to plan, to put it mildly – we are nonetheless uniquely blessed in our opponent. No, the reason I object to an early election is not that I think the Government is doomed to lose; far from it. The reason an election is wildly premature is that Corbyn is not alone in his fundamental confusion. Yes, he seems fatally incoherent on the crucial question of the customs union – but then so is the Government. If Tory MPs were asked to go into electoral battle in the next few months, there would be a hole in the heart of our manifesto. I have no idea what we would say about the EU – because after two and a half years of dither the truly astonishing feature of the UK position is that the big questions have still not been answered.
We are still proposing to give up £39 billion – a staggering sum – with no clarity about the future relationship; and when I say there is no clarity, that is not by any means the fault of the EU. It is unclear what the UK is really asking for. In the course of the next few weeks we are all hoping that the Prime Minister will use the mandate of Parliament to get rid of the backstop. If she is brave, she can rewrite the Withdrawal Agreement so that we are no longer trapped in the customs union and single market. If she is tough, she can remove the threat to Northern Ireland. But then what? Remember that after March 29 we do not really shake ourselves free from the rule of Brussels. On the contrary, the PM’s plan is that we would enter a protracted and humiliating “implementation period” during which we would have to accept every jot and tittle of EU law, with no one in Brussels to represent UK interests, until such time as we have finally negotiated a new relationship. The present plan is that this servitude would go on until at least the end of 2020, and if we enter the backstop it might endure forever.
It is not an implementation period; there is nothing to implement. It is really a negotiating period, which already promises to be uniquely difficult because the Prime Minister has brilliantly decided to give up our most important negotiating capital – the £39 billion – in advance. So the question that would be posed at the election is the question that for two and half years the PM has refused to answer. What sort of deal does she really want to do – in her heart? Even if it is improved, the current Withdrawal Agreement is capable of all kinds of interpretations. Yes, Britain could in theory end up with a Canada style-free trade agreement; we might actually obey the request of the people and take back control of our laws. We might finally take advantage of the freedoms of Brexit. On the other hand there are plenty of people round the Cabinet table who want no such thing. They want to keep us locked in the customs union; the don’t mind at all if we remain subject to EU law, with no influence on the making of those laws.