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Boris Johnson’s legal scrape only adds to the fantasy oddness of Brexit

Sooner or later, some sense of reality must dawn upon those who govern us – some sense at least that Brexit, on anything like civilised, orderly terms, cannot be achieved by Halloween

Wednesday 29 May 2019 20:01 BST
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Tory leadership race: Boris Johnson in profile

Even by the Alice in Wonderland standards of today, the private prosecution of Boris Johnson for “misconduct in a public office” is strange indeed. The case is being pursued by a campaigner, Marcus Ball, who has crowdfunded £200,000 for the cause.

A source close to Mr Johnson called the case a “politically motivated attempt to reverse Brexit”. It will be heard at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and then may be referred to a crown court. If it proceeds – and there will be many legal wrangles and challenges along the way – it might see a serving prime minister (that is, Mr Johnson) in the dock answering serious charges. He has denied misconduct in a public office. It is the stuff of a political fiction from Michael Dobbs or Jeffrey Archer.

Whatever the merits of the case, which turn on Mr Johnson’s remarks as an MP during the 2016 referendum and later as foreign secretary, this latest twist in the Brexit drama certainly adds to the looking-glass quality of recent events.

After all, the UK has just elected members of the European parliament in an election that was never supposed to take place, for an assembly in which many of the new MEPs will refuse to play any constructive role and, on an outside chance, won’t have the opportunity to take their seats in any case if the UK manages to leave the EU shortly.

Next week, at the Peterborough by-election, Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party will put in another strong challenge, with the party’s first MP perfectly plausible. For what it is worth, the bookies are making it favourite to win. As Mr Farage points out, it is a startling state of affairs for a political party that did not exist a few months ago.

The analogies for Brexit are legion and often flawed, but the present state of affairs does have elements of Groundhog Day about it. The Conservative leadership contenders are rehashing the esoteric arguments that have been discussed ad nauseum during the past few years: the possibility of renegotiating the withdrawal agreement, adding in the Brady amendment or Malthouse compromise; a solution to the Irish border conundrum; the merits of no deal; the powers of the Commons to restrain the prime minister and HM government; the economic consequences of trading with the EU on World Trade Organisation terms; the divorce bill; and the rights of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU.

All of these were, provisionally, settled in the package Theresa May came back from Brussels with last autumn – the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration. They were rejected by the Commons three times. They would be again – hence her resignation. But installing Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Esther McVey, Rory Stewart, James Cleverly, Andrea Leadsom or, for that matter, Ant and Dec, Sir David Attenborough or the cast of Love Island into No 10 will make no difference to the parliamentary arithmetic, nor the attitude of the EU.

The national stalemate is structural, permanent and entrenched, as the European parliament elections amply demonstrated. The EU will not let the UK leave on terms acceptable to the House of Commons; the House of Commons will not approve a no-deal Brexit, and speaker John Bercow has made it plain that MPs will be allowed an opportunity to impose their will on the executive. Nothing has changed, as someone once said.

Indeed, the air of fantasy is heightened by the already apparent fact that the new British prime minister, foreign secretary and Brexit secretary will have no one to negotiate with because the new European Commission will not be in place by the 31 October deadline, let alone with sufficient time to redraft all the agreements Ms May’s team took two years to construct.

The British may even be soon faced with the spectre of Michel Barnier, the bête noire of the British press, being appointed as president of the European Commission. If anyone is going to be reluctant to tear up the withdrawal agreement, it is the very man who helped to frame it.

Sooner or later, some sense of reality must dawn upon those who govern us. Some sense, indeed, that Brexit, on anything like civilised, orderly terms, cannot be achieved by Halloween, even if there was a greater sense of common purpose than there exists today.

The only practical and democratic way to break the deadlock, as some on all sides of the debate are now beginning to realise, is via a Final Say referendum. Then and only then can the British and the EU awake from this interminable nightmare.

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