We may be out of the EU, but the Conservatives just can’t break their Brussels-blaming habit

The more Johnson repeats a promise, the more likely he is to break it (Picture: Mark Thomas/Rex) Well, that didn’t take long.  For months, we’ve been hearing honeyed words from the prime minister about ‘our EU friends’ and how warm our future relationship would be with Europe even though we would be out of the EU.  Even in his speech on Brexit Day last Friday, Boris Johnson said Brexit was the start of a ‘new era of friendly cooperation’.  Within 48 hours, that warm tone had completely vanished. It was as if the thermostat had dropped 20 degrees.  First there was Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s ridiculous ‘instruction’ given to UK diplomats that they should avoid sitting with their EU counterparts at international meetings. Puerile and childish doesn’t begin to cover it. This is treating diplomacy like a primary school playground.  Dominic Raab also spent the weekend taking a swipe at the EU, accusing it of suddenly changing the rules by saying the UK must align with EU regulations.  Advertisement Advertisement  This was followed up by the prime minister saying there was no need in a free trade deal to accept EU rules on social and environmental protections because the UK will ‘maintain the highest standards, better in many respects than those of the EU’.  The idea that the UK is somehow a beacon of excellence on the environment would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. There has been nothing to prevent the UK surpassing EU standards during our years of membership of the EU, but we haven’t.  So you’ll understand if I treat Johnson’s promises with scepticism.   Boris Johnson’s ‘getting Brexit done’, coupled with an extraordinarily tight timetable for agreeing a new trade deal, is a very thin cover for what may well be a hard, crash-out Brexit at the end of this year.   The experience of the last few months has reminded us that the more Johnson repeats a promise, the more likely he is to break it.     We can have no confidence that abandoning the level playing field with the EU would result in the UK having better standards or protections. Boris Johnson’s wish to regulate differently, and the ideological leanings of most of his cabinet, makes it clear that this government will tear up worker and environmental protections at the first opportunity.  I have said for some time that Boris Johnson’s ‘getting Brexit done’, coupled with an extraordinarily tight timetable for agreeing a new trade deal, is a very thin cover for what may well be a hard, crash-out Brexit at the end of this year.  Advertisement Advertisement  It’ll be couched in phrases such as ‘Australia-style agreement’ ,which disguises the fact that trade with Australia is currently carried out under WTO terms – exactly those which we would have with the EU if we fail to agree a trade deal before the end of the year. So in other words, a no deal Brexit.  The very no deal Brexit that organisations from farming to manufacturers, the pharmaceutical industry, the CBI and trade union

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