Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal shows he’s no clown – John McLellan

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in touching distance of delivering a Brexit deal few thought possible, writes John McLellan.

Boris Johnson may have achieved what once seemed impossible with his Brexit deal (Picture: Peter Summers/Getty Images)

As we shuffled out of the Perth Concert Hall in July after the Conservative Party leadership hustings, I turned to one of my colleagues. “Well I hope he has a plan,” I said, somewhat despairingly. My colleague raised his eyebrows and nodded. “He’s a clown.”

Well, the laugh is on us and if Boris Johnson didn’t have a plan then he very quickly pulled one together which has cornered the Labour Party and pushed his opponents towards the election he wants. With the picture changing not just day-to-day but hour-by-hour, it could end in disaster this evening, but for all the constitutional chicanery against him he is in touching distance of delivering a Brexit deal few thought possible.

As many observers have pointed out, few believed him when he said he could reopen negotiations with the EU, fewer believed he could ditch the Irish backstop and hardly anyone thought he could agree a completely new deal. But nobody expected European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to say before the EU summit that there would be no extension to the October 31 withdrawal date, which if correct would render the Benn Act virtually meaningless.

Waking on Thursday morning, most deal supporters would have been despondent at the overnight news of the DUP’s rejection, but by mid-afternoon it had turned to bubbling optimism as Mr Juncker sought to turn the whole process into a binary choice: no extension means no time for a second referendum or a General Election. On October 31 we would be out, just like the man said we would be, even if he has to write that letter. Now all he has to do is win today’s vote in parliament. All? Maybe Mr Johnson is indeed a clown with no idea where his jalopy is taking him next, but I doubt it. With the exception of the DUP’s intransigence, the events leading up to the EU Summit looked choreographed by a political Diaghilev and now the UK’s political future rests with 30 or 40 wavering MPs facing deal or no-deal.

Maybe MPs will vote down the deal or back a second referendum, maybe EU leaders will grant an extension, as European Council President Donald Tusk suggested on Thursday night, but despite all the manoeuvring against him Mr Johnson has done the apparently impossible and, in abandoning the DUP, has proved beyond all doubt that a deal was his aim. As the polls demonstrate, all the buffeting from a dysfunctional opposition out to destroy any plan the Government produces without one of its own has not weakened Mr Johnson’s hand. If anything it strengthens it. I wrote here some months ago that Mr Johnson’s advantage over Mr Hunt would be his ability to sell a tweaked May deal to Tory Brexiteers and so it has proved. My prediction that resignation will be his only choice if he continues to be stymied by Parliament may yet come true before the weekend is over. The result will be stalemate and an election he will win.

The SNP will today try to force an election in the belief they will sweep the board in Scotland and make an independence vote next year unavoidable, But if one political drama is curtailed, are enough Scots ready for another? And what about those 400,000 SNP purists who want out the EU as badly as their Southern leaver counterparts? For all the bluster, every senior Nationalist knows how the second Quebec referendum was lost. After what we’ve seen this week, Mr Johnson’s government will have a plan.

The problem with aggression

Coercive behaviour and generally making life as difficult as possible for an individual is now rightly treated the same as physical violence. Psychological abuse is still abuse.

In a business and organisational context, what is commonly known as “passive aggressive” behaviour is recognised as wilful disengagement which aims to make progress difficult. Passive or openly confrontational, it’s still aggression.

Yet when it comes to protest, anything short of physical violence is apparently legitimate. So as Extinction rebels prevent people from going about their lawful business protestors not only expect meek acceptance of inconvenience because it’s for everyone’s ultimate benefit and gratitude because no-one is getting punched in the mouth. So when an elderly gent prevents a plane taking off and disrupts the passengers’ schedules they are expected to put up with it.

Not so the commuters of Canning Town who dragged two protestors from the roof of the train they were waiting to board and video shared on social media clearly shows afters being dished out. Actual violence can’t be condoned, but when direct action is taken to disrupt the lives of thousands of people it should be absolutely no surprise that some of them will act directly in return.

XR representatives grudgingly conceded that trying to halt climate change by making it impossible to travel by electric train was not smart, but it’s time the pretence that non-violence does not equal aggression is dropped. When frustrated travellers are provoked into a physical reaction, the aggressive disruptors have no-one to blame but themselves.

Why is the Daily Mail arguing with itself?

Of public disputes, it’s hard to think of one as strange as that between former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre and his successor Geordie Greig.

Mr Greig told the FT that hundreds of new advertisers had come to his paper since he took over, implying the previous regime was off-putting, to which Mr Dacre riposted in a letter. “He claims 265 advertisers came back to the Daily Mail in his year as editor. In fact, far more than that number left during the same period.” But parent company DMG Media countered that “the advertising revenue from the 265 new advertisers in Mail newspapers more than offset the loss from those advertisers we didn’t see in the past financial year.” And the editor-in-chief of DMG Media? Mr Paul Dacre. Extraordinary.

Young Royals’ ’cult of victimhood’

The Daily Mail and most other major news organisations are part of the Royal rota system, providing voluntarily coverage of official engagements by the inner Royal Family to capture them for posterity. So when Prince Charles visits a Highland distillery, or Princess Anne a Borders school, a Press photographer will be there.

Every year there is a competition to find the best rota picture and as Prince Harry bitterly complained about tabloid intrusion, the winner of this year’s contest was revealed; a lovely shot of him at a Luton school taken by the doyen of royal snappers, Arthur Edwards. Of The Sun.

Responsible for some of the most iconic pictures of Princess Diana, including the famous “see-through” shot when her engagement to Prince Charles was announced, he wrote earlier this year that “Despite being surrounded by great wealth and privilege, the young royals seem to have been seduced by the cult of victimhood. Meghan really needs to lighten up. So does Harry.”

They’re not listening, Arthur. Quite the opposite