Having wizzed round the Awesome Foursome, as he likes to call the four nations of the United Kingdom, Boris’s whirlwind tour has not brought much clarity, other than the fact that almost everybody everywhere is against a no deal Brexit. It is reported that Frost, the new chief negotiator for the Boris Number Ten regime, is going to Brussels to tell key officials that there will be no negotiations unless and until the EU agrees to drop the Backstop. If that is correct, since the EU seems resolute not to back down, a no deal Brexit looms, unless somebody blinks. Or parliament brings down the government.
It is perhaps worth remarking on Boris’s hyperbolic enthusiasm for, and endorsement of, the Union. The certain way to fracture it is a no deal exit on October 31st. Such would be the catastrophic impact on both parts of Ireland that under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, an international treaty involving the EU and backed by the US as sacrosanct, a vote to offer the prospect of a united Ireland would be triggered. It is near certain the Unionists would lose and Northern Ireland would cease to be a part of the UK. Then there would be a threesome, but not quite so Awesome. After that fracture, Scotland would be very likely…. More on that another day.