Time and leverage

The UK Government had learned nothing from the A50 process, in that entering time limited negotiations, the UK case gets more urgent with each passing day.

Until something has to give and agree to something up to that point which was unpalatable.

For example, there was always going to be a regulatory border, it was a case of where it would be, with regard to Britain and NI. Either the regulatory border would follow the national border across Ireland, or it would be in the Irish Sea, or there wouldn't be one at all.

Something had to give, it was clear that one separating NI from the Republic would be politically problematic, and against the GFA, so Johnson had to let the DUP down, who up to that point had kept the Tories in power. It is now playing with words: "no new infrastructure" can mean re purposing an existing building or port, but might not mean that the building of a 14 acre lorry handling facility isn't.

As in November when the WA was agreed, as with between now and the end of the year, someone, or some group, many groups will be let down by Johnson. He has promised to much to everyone and will not be able to keep all of those promises. And in the red wall areas, where the promise of a "good deal" and levelling up were taken at face value, breaking those might mean that the Tories would be pariahs there once again.

Just who will be let down and what they feel and do about it remains to be seen, but the cracks will soon appear, and develop into chasms. But we know that New Year's Eve is a real deadline, and so much has to be done by then, and most Ministers are incapable of even the most basic project management. A rather large computer system has to be developed, rolled out and be up and running in 6 months, 5 months and 30 days, capable of handling 400 million declarations a year. People need to be trained to run it, do inspections and the EU needs to approve the documented outputs so they will allow freight to pass.

None of this is conjecture; it is reality. And needed to be done 18 months ago.

But wasn't.

This cannot be avoided, not this time, as a country, we are running out of time and there is no more road to kick the can down. Companies that are struggling with COVID are expected to plan for January 1st, without knowing what to prepare for. No deal would kill most of them off, and the reality is that if no deal does happen, then a revised version of something would follow under the shadow here of shortages and possible civil unrest. Between now and the end of the year, or after it, the UK will have to accept whatever is offered by the EU, just as Johnson did in November.