Week of Brexit chaos has been tough on Boris, but tougher on the British

Protesters demonstrate against leaving the EU without a deal. Picture: AP.

The last few days have been tough on Boris Johnson. The shiny new Prime Minister has been left po-faced and confused, as if left to wonder, “Gee, who’d have thought Brexit would be so hard?”

He’s been Prime Minister for a month, and the leader on the Treasury benches for just three days. His majority is gone. He’s lost four votes out of four on the floor of the Commons. It’s a bit like watching David Warner’s face as he makes his way from the crease to the dressing room — puzzled, perplexed, as if some dark unknown force in the universe has stepped forth to send a perfectly formed elliptical career trajectory downwards into the red zone.

What happens next? You tell me and we’ll both know. The only reliable notion we should bring to bear is that punditry has taken a holiday and perhaps it should to avoid the long, interminable queues at airports and ferry terminals that will now almost certainly come after All Saints’ Eve.

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The politically desperate clamour for a second referendum but that ship has sailed and won’t come back until it passes customs checks at Felixstowe. Give that six months, maybe a year.

Nevertheless, a referendum is still worth pondering in the theoretical. The 2016 European Union Membership referendum delivered a 52 to 48 leave verdict with the remainers falling 1.3 million votes short.

But were the leavers sold a pup, told in emphatic terms that Brexit would be a walk in the park with all the benefits of a single market still in place, a tariff-free trading environment, freedom of movement across borders and the only discernible difference a political power shift from Brussels to London?

Let’s go to the bunker for the verdict. It’s crowded in there, I know, but use your elbows and try and get a good spot. Here’s what the UK’s leading Brexiteers said leading up to and in the wake of the Brexit referendum:

• “I believe that we can get a free trade and customs agreement concluded before March 2019.” — Former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, David Davis in January 2017.

• “We didn’t vote to leave without a deal. That wasn’t the message of the campaign I helped lead.” — Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Michael Gove in March 2019.

• “Coming to a free trade agreement with the EU should be one of the easiest in human history.” — Former Secretary of Trade Liam Fox in July 2017.

• “I put it to you, all those who say that there would be barriers to trade with Europe if we were to do a Brexit, do you seriously believe that they would put up tariffs against UK produce of any kind, when they know how much they want to sell us their cake, their champagne, their cheese from France? It is totally and utterly absurd.” — Then Lord Mayor of London, Boris Johnson in March 2016.

• “Outside the EU, we would still benefit from the free trade zone which stretches from Iceland to the Russian border,” Gove again in April 2016.

•And finally, “There is no plan for no deal because we are going to get a great deal.” That was Johnson in 2017 when he was Foreign Minister in Theresa May’s government.

In the long list of things that make you go hmmm these days, these remarks sit comfortably at the pointy end. At very least they stand as reminders that if the commentariat gets things utterly, unspeakably wrong, we look like Jules Verne compared to politicians.

As Johnson lost his first vote on Tuesday night, complaining that he had been restrained from negotiating a soft Brexit, the EU Commissioners stepped forward to advise no new deal had been put and no plan for a backstop in Ireland had been raised (despite Johnson’s claim that he had a ready-to-roll solution).

If Johnson had a plan, that plan was a hard or no deal Brexit and with it, genuine fears of economic chaos and social unrest, an existential threat to the United Kingdom itself.

Who knows, in a few years the Queen might have to apply for a visa just to go on her summer hols at Balmoral.

The one thing Brexit has taught us is that polling is about as reliable as an email from a Nigerian prince but there are certain trends on party political polling that need to be noted.

The Conservatives lead Labour by double figures on any poll. Let’s call that the Jeremy Corbyn factor. Corbyn remains arguably Johnson’s greatest political asset.

The Lib-Dems are on the rise with polling in the high teens. Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party is just a few points behind. Farage has offered a coalition with the Tories. Labor could forge an unlikely alliance with the LDP. The Scottish National Party may play a significant role in the future parliament. But any way you look at it, the votes don’t amount to a majority either way.

In first past the post voting, minor parties are generally at a disadvantage but with Brexit fatigue having kicked in long ago and a widespread loss of faith in political institutions, the minors are bound to increase their representation in the new parliament. Even a tenuous coalition amounting to the magical 326 bums on seats for a majority looks a pipe dream.

The arguments for a form of Brexit — and there are some solid ones - can loosely be placed under the cryptic term, sovereignty. Sovereignty is lovely word. On the page it looks odd, jam packed with what seem to be too many vowels, but it sounds melodious rolling off the tongue.

The trouble with sovereignty is, it is a politico-legal concept. It doesn’t put food in mouths, money in back pockets or insulin in diabetic veins for that matter.

While the UK Parliament continues its relentless slide into dysfunction, the real question is what matters most to the good people of the United Kingdom, arcane deliberations on sovereignty or economic subsistence? The short answer is, I don’t know. But we’re about to find out.