Sticks and stones may break my bones, but focus grouped words...

The badge of the Downing St Misdirection Unit

I'm looking for a surrender.

On Friday night's Any Questions on Radio 4 Nadhim Zahawi MP spoke from the standard script of the moment. Health secretary Matt Hancock and Paul Scully, the Conservative party's deputy chair, came out on Sunday and used identical terms. The European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 must be called not the Benn Act, which is an obvious short name (remember the Brady amendment?) but the Surrender Act "because that's what it is".

The phrase has caught on - indeed it's been focus grouped, polished and pumped out non-stop - and is picked up by Brexiters known and unknown. Every time it's rejected or contradicted (and this post will be guilty of the same) it's reinforced in the public mind. So Andy Burnham tells Sky News "the ‘take no prisoners’ approach to Brexit is ‘unnerving people...ratcheting up the atmosphere’" and Matthew d'Ancona includes it as one of many examples in his long read about "the new network politics of the Right".

It's easy to throw two words round, but there is occasionally a whole argument that goes with them - that "the EU" will not negotiate seriously if they think No Deal has been "taken off the table". The script demands that the Act's workings are exaggerated - it actually only prevents exit without a withdrawal agreement on 31 October, by means of a request for extension of the Article 50 process to 31 January - and that its effect is presented as absolute. And many angry voices tell us this whenever they can.

The moment at which Johnson tells Paula Sherriff that her appeal
for more moderate language is "humbug".

But where is this effect? When Zahawi addressed the second question on Any Questions he was suddenly telling us about all the progress the UK negotiators are making. Again, it's a standard script, as reeled off by Johnson himself on Wednesday (the first day in the Commons we had the Supreme Court to thank for - he planned to be free of  scrutiny until at least 14 October):

"Some 64 days ago, I was told that Brussels would never reopen the withdrawal agreement; we are now discussing a reopened withdrawal agreement in the negotiations. I was told that Brussels would never consider alternatives to the backstop - the trap that keeps the UK effectively in the EU but with no say; we are now discussing those alternatives in the negotiations. I was told that Brussels would never consider arrangements that were not permanent; we are now discussing in the negotiations an arrangement that works on the principle of consent and is not permanent. I was told that there was no chance of a new deal, but we are discussing a new deal, in spite of the best efforts of the Labour party and this Parliament to wreck our negotiations by their attempts to take no deal off the table."

"In spite of.." eh? You mean the best efforts of Labour and Parliament - including the famous Act - have failed to prevent progress? The misdirection campaign doesn't need to bear any resemblance to the facts, so long as it's loud and consistent. What is it supposed to achieve? Togetherness among d'Ancona's "networked right", suspicion building to hate, readiness for a "People v Parliament" election, but obviously not violence, though that would be quite understandable, you know. As Johnson's top adviser Dominic Cummings told Karl Turner MP, if you want to avoid death threats "get Brexit done".

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Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay: "There's a long way to go".

That same Friday, DExEU secretary Stephen Barclay told the media "The UK government is planning to put out 'concrete proposals' next week for reaching a Brexit deal with the EU". The idea is to take them over after the Conservative party conference - after gaining the full support of the Tory faithful, or for fear that the membership would cause trouble in Manchester if they knew the plans? Assume that Barnier sees these proposals  on Thursday 3 October, just four weeks before the current Brexit day, and hope that, for a change, the documents can actually be seen by the 27 other members, and maybe even some real people outside or inside London, rich or poor, pro- or anti-Brexit.

Yet actual letters exchanged between Barclay and Michel Barnier before the talks the minister had just returned from tell a different story. Barclay signals that the UK is not ready for leaving with no deal - there are subjects which should be "explore[d] jointly" to make it "work". Things like "how we maintain the flow of trade in goods and passengers at points of entry/exit... exchange of data [and] citizens rights" need joint work, and it really would be nice if the member states relaxed their refusal to engage in "bilateral discussions". Barnier's response is basically "No":

"As we mentioned in previous letters to you and your predecessors, we believe that the Withdrawal Agreement is the best way to protect citizens and business. Every issue raised in your letter... has already been addressed comprehensively in the Withdrawal Agreement. There is no other way to achieve all the benefits that the Withdrawal Agreement provides."

The same reports which gave us Barclay's positive slant included the European Commission's response, which sounded rather familiar: "Mr Barnier had stressed to Mr Barclay during the meeting that it was 'essential' there was a 'fully operational solution in the withdrawal agreement to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, protect the all-island economy and the integrity of the single market'. The EU remains open and willing to examine any workable and legally operative proposals that meet all these objectives".

So what is actually preventing progress? Is it a piece of "remainer" legislation (passed by MPs many of whom have voted for Brexit and would do again, if there was a deal), or is it Johnson's refusal to make any kind of proposal? Strangely all the British reports from negotiations are upbeat (if a little "inventive"). No mention of the EU suddenly refusing to talk after that terrible Act became law on 9 September.

RTE's Tony Connelly, one of the best commentators on this whole sorry mess, gives us a different view, based on actual evidence of talking to the people involved: "The appetite for the EU to be flexible on the backstop has been intimately linked with Johnson’s ability to get the agreement through parliament. If there’s no prospect of that, there’s no reason to be flexible".

Today, Sunday 29 September 2019, Boris Johnson has been prime minister for 67 days, and MPs and peers have actually been in what John Bercow pointedly called their "place of work" when they returned from unlawful suspension for nine of those days.

Johnson has still not demonstrated a majority in the Commons. Indeed, he has lost every significant vote in his prime ministerial career.

And if you wondered, "ecce illic" is a Google-aided Latin motto which loosely translates as "Look over there!".