Boris Johnson brexit

The UK government would appear to be in the throes of crisis, with the resignation first of “Brexit” secretary David Davis and then foreign secretary Boris Johnson, following a “soft Brexit” process hammered out by UK Prime Minister Theresa May in a 12-hour meeting of cabinet ministers held incommunicado at Chequers, the PM’s country residence.

The deal was yet another twist in the torturous Brexit saga, which has become a nightmare for those who had imagined that a “yes” vote would yield a quick exit, a return of the gold standard, hogshead beer measures and British India. It has become increasingly clear to them that there is to be no swashbuckling free trade deal to be made between the UK and the EU. It’s either a customs deal — which continues EU control over large parts of UK laws — or no deal at all, simply an exit, which leaves trade processes in limbo, and the question of the six-county/26-county (Northern Ireland/Republic) border in chaos.

The process has been tearing the Tory Party apart for months and May’s shotgun meeting was a desperate move to quell the internal warfare. The deal she imposed is a complex idea of a “common rulebook” and “combined customs territory” in which UK and EU law will align on particular trade conditions, and the UK can set tariffs on non-EU goods but not on EU goods, without disturbing the “rulebook”, and arggggghh, it’s a headspin.

It also locks the UK into EU law — by ongoing consent — which is a hard Brexit no-no. So “hard Brexiteers” such as Davis and Johnson resigned immediately out of principle. Oh, sorry, of course not. Davis waited a weekend, sniffed the wind and decided there was no upside to staying in a likely doomed government, and went — and Johnson, having hoped he might cling on, had to go when Davis went.

By the time you read this, others may go as well. That would allow May room to fill her cabinet with Remainers willing to support a “soft” Brexit, but leaves her with the problem David Cameron faced, such as what prompted him to call the referendum in the first place: a cabal of plotters gaining critical mass day-by-day. Will Johnson now make a tilt for the leadership? Would they elevate Jacob Rees-Mogg, ancient Wykehamists and Salopians thus being joined by the first Wodehousian PM, walking straight out of a Jeeves and into Number 10?

Nothing further happened of consequence in the hours between your correspondent’s filing and waking. The Guardian farewelled Boris — for now — in fine fashion: “good riddance to a useless national embarrassment” their headline read, which would be tough to fit on a cake, but well worth a try. Boris himself gave the kiss of the whip, noting that with the “common rulebook” deal, Britain would be “on the way to status as a colony”, leading Twitter to ask “there’s something wrong with being a colony?” of this charter member of the British Empire crowd. Hilarious. England may win the World Cup, and the team will bring it back to a country that runs like Brazil.