The European Commission is offering substantial concessions. If Boris Johnson refuses, it will prove that he prefers conflict to resolution
A detail in the story of Brexit, often forgotten, is Boris Johnson’s support for Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement at a third Commons vote in March 2019. Having resigned from the cabinet in protest at Mrs May’s plan, he endorsed it, not because he changed his mind about the content, but because it seemed expedient in the moment. The motive was fear of losing Brexit altogether; the intention was to kill Britain’s EU membership, take any deal available and then try to change it from the outside.
Mrs May lost that vote. Mr Johnson became prime minister and his sign-and-renege strategy became government policy. Hence the decision in October 2019 to agree to the Northern Ireland protocol, placing a customs border in the Irish Sea. Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s chief adviser at the time, has said that there was never intent in Downing Street to stick with the terms of what had been agreed. A typically self-serving and pugnacious Twitter outburst by Mr Cummings included the assertion that “cheating foreigners is a core part of the job”.
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