Boris Johnson is still lying, and still no one cares

Boris Johnson's Brexit plan has been shown to be garbage. It has not stopped him sticking to it.

It’s a war of attrition now, as futile and pointless as it is grinding and desperate. All hope of gaining ground is gone, but we are still compelled to defend our territory or else lose it. And so, with our hearts longing for impending death, we must return to our positions once more.

There’s been another round of Tory leadership hustings. Boris Johnson’s position on Brexit is still meaningless garbage. He still wants to “disaggregate bits of the withdrawal agreement”. He still wants to deal with the Irish border question “during the implementation period”, all the while continuing to have “frictionless trade” with the European Union.

It’s still the case the European Union say they will not countenance this. It is still the case that there is no implementation period unless an agreement is signed. It is still the case that his own deputy prime minister, David Lidington, has had to put out a statement saying exactly this – that the almost certain next prime minister’s plan for Brexit is a complete non-starter.

It’s still the case that the trade secretary Liam Fox, ardent eurosceptic of several decades standing, has also had to write an article saying Boris Johnson’s Brexit position is legally impossible.

But still Boris Johnson continues to say it, and so we must continue to say it is garbage, though it makes no difference to anyone. At this hopeless stage, wars tend only to be resolved by apocalyptic new technology. Sadly, that’s not going to happen here. It’s just a waiting game now.

Boris Johnson knows it’s garbage. Do the Tory members know it’s garbage? Do they just not care that it’s garbage? No one knows. Or cares. They don’t care about anything. They only care about Brexit. And so all you have to do is tell them they’re going to get it, as hard and as fast as possible, and they’re all yours.

Which, if your name’s Boris Johnson, they are. Another conquest. Another notch in the political bedpost. All you’ve got to do is tell them there’s going to be “more resolve”, that we’re “going to believe in ourselves,” and everything’s going to be fine. Course it is. It’s going to be absolutely fine. This guy who’s been sacked twice for lying and won’t admit how many children he’s got says it’s going to be fine, so why would anyone think for a second that it’s not going to be fine?

And just when it couldn’t be any more fine, out came Jeremy Hunt. Out came Jeremy Hunt, specifically, beneath a campaign video of Jeremy Hunt, detailing the number of babies’ lives he has personally saved in various different continents.

He had his jacket off and sleeves delicately rolled up too, an insouciant nod to late era Cameron. Whatever happened to that guy?

Then Jeremy Hunt had some pre-scripted gags to share with the crowd, before moving on to more important questions. It went like this. This is entirely verbatim. “I almost called my campaign Hunty McHuntface. You have to be very careful how you say that.” Pause. Deep Breath. Pause again. “We live in serious times.”

Anyway, Jeremy Hunt is carrying on his little rebel act as best he can. Doing his absolute best to pretend to love Brexit, trying to fit in, but looking like a kind of Brexit Will from The Inbetweeners, sent off to the big bad Brexit school and desperately trying to make friends.

While he was speaking, somebody from his team evidently decided it was a good idea to write on Twitter, from Jeremy Hunt, “Speaking at Bournemouth: Britain is here, Britain is back, and Britain’s voice is going to be strong in the world.”

Which does rather beg the question: what is Britain’s strong voice in the world going to be saying? Is it going to be more of this meaningless noise?

If there are any Tory members out there still weighing up the choice in front of them, it’s unlikely to get much clearer as the weeks go by. Johnson has just rebooted the old lies from 2016. Even the “Australian-style points-based immigration system” is back up and running. (Australia has double the level of immigration of the UK. More than half of the UK’s immigration is from outside the EU. But this was pointed out in 2016 and it made no difference then so it won’t now.)

Hunt, arguably, is the more dismal of the candidates. Johnson is a straightforward joke. Hunt is a serious human being, for serious times, wearing a gossamer thin cloak of ridiculousness just to try and fit in.

There are about a dozen more of these events to come. The war of attrition rolls on. Was it for this the clay grew tall?