Fools Gold

This week was dominated by the actions, or inactions, of the ERG.

The ERG is a party within the Parliamentary Conservative Party, funded by channeling member expenses into it. This may be against the rules of The House. Or not.

It is made up of about 80 members, 40 have made themselves public, about 40 are unknown.

They are forcing the Government into actions which are not in the country's interest, and certainly not democratic. The ERG also cannot agree on what Brexit means, but are trying hell for leather to make it happen in whatever form it takes, the harder the better.

They published two papers, one on some of the roadblocks, and the other on the Irish border. That both papers were just rehashes of the MaxFac plan rejected by the EU last summer, on a regular basis since then, whenever the Government repackages it into a package with different wrapping.

This does two things, looks like the ERG are trying to fix the clusterfuck they help create, and when the EU rejects the papers, they can blame the EU for being unbending and unwilling to compromise.

The ERg hope to gather enough support to be able to block anything based on the Chequers paper, thus forcing the Government to present a take it or leave it WA in the late winter. Or better, a deal so bad that Parliament cannot accept it, and the UK falls out of the EU by default.

Today, arch Brexiteer Micheal Gove stated: "A future prime minister can always change the relationship with the EU", meaning that a Brexiteer PM would not honour any WA. THis is not a surprise, really, but to say it out loud is worrying, as much as threatening not to honour the financial settlement. And at the same time showing there is no honour at all in the ERG.

Its like Gove and his ilk are trying to destroy the last semblance of credibility the country has left, by suggesting that any WA or TA would not be written in stone, and up for grabs again. In a way this is partially an accurate description of Brexit, in that Brexit is not an event, but a process, a process that will never end, as trade and regulation change, so the WA would also have to change. Brexit would be never ending, though if a future ERG lead Conservative Government it probably would never start.

Finally, a point I'd like to make. In place of the void where policy should be, what is legally possible or impossible will determine what form Brexit willg take. This is Brexit by default, by accident, which means that although no Brexiteers can agree on what Brexit is, they probably won't like the final form it will take either.