Call My Bluff, Prime Minister Boris Johnson threatens to tear up Withdrawal Agreement and remove Irish customs pledge, five weeks to seal Brexit or we walk, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon sees her doomed EU strategy go up in smoke and as usual she attacks the PM, ironically she wouldn’t be getting her 20 pieces of silver from the EU, they don’t like her either!

Dear All

It is hard to imagine, but there was a world prior to covid 19, remember those carefree days when you could nip into the local supermarket without stopping at the door to get out your facemask. Prior to the plague, the real battle in the UK was Brexit, and the sabotage led by Remainers working hand in glove with the EU. Cheery helpful Britons lined up to betray us all with a smile on the face and without a clue what they were really campaigning against. At the end of the year, the transition period runs out, and either we will have a deal with the EU which works for both sides or we won’t. As I previously mentioned, the EU came to the discussions with an agenda and bad faith, which is why I said right at the start, better off not playing their games and go with no deal.

So, is no deal really that bad?

Well, it is if you’re the EU which needs to export, and the UK market is without a doubt a major place to export too. In the wake of what passes for talks, we are at the stage where it is said that there are five weeks to seal Brexit!

Or we walk!

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has threatened to tear up the Withdrawal Agreement and also remove Irish customs pledge. This is either a serious intent or brinkmanship on his part. You would think that the Europeans would by now have got the message when he insists No Deal would be 'good outcome'. The deadline for waving bye bye is said to be October 15^th, when EU leaders are due to hold a major summit in Brussels. The meeting will present a united front, because they have no option, but behind the scenes, there will be pressure, big business wants a solution, especially companies that do high volume sales into the UK, such as car makers. The 27 EU member states (EU27) produced 19.69 million motor vehicles in 2017 and exported 2.3 million of these to the United Kingdom; this represents 82% of the UK's motor vehicle import volume, worth €38 billion.

Add in all the other markets that are producing goods for the UK, and you can understand why big business will be a player behind the scenes in these talks, and you can also add in the finance market people. Everyone is invested in reality to get a working deal, but silly demands over fishing along with any of the other demands will not sit well with the British people.

Our waters, our fish!

Boris Johnson has effectively staked his premiership on getting a good deal or no deal; he says there is 'still an agreement to be had'. He also is keenly aware that he 'cannot and will not compromise on the fundamentals of what it means to be an independent country to get it', such as the freedom for the UK to set its own laws and fish its own waters. Remember what happened to David Cameron when he sought compromise, he got shafted all roads by the EU and publicly to boot. Started off campaigning for one thing, got nowhere, tried to go plan B watered down version, he still got shafted. The Cameron experience was a road marker for how the EU was going to act, because they know just as the UK left, there are others in the EU who could follow suit. Since the UK left, there hasn’t been any serious attempt at EU reform, and it is doubtful that any political will exists for it.

The UK is planning to tear up parts of the Withdrawal Agreement ministers signed with the EU in January. Environment Secretary George Eustice insists that the Bill was merely clearing up 'loopholes' in the pact with Brussels. Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney warning that reneging on the deal would be 'unwise'. This issue with a hard border is really a red herring, if the EU wants a hard border in Ireland, let them do it, let them explain it, let them put it up and let them take the flak for it. Who knows, down the line, the Irish people might turn round and demand their own ‘Brexit’.  

As the Project Fear campaign continues, we still get the nonsense from Remainers whether the UK was facing medicine shortages if there is not a trade deal.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock told LBC radio:

'I am comfortable that we have done the work that is needed.' 

Denial of medicine isn’t a road that the EU would be stupid enough to travel down.

The PM's comments come ahead of talks in London between UK chief negotiator David Frost and his EU counterpart Michel Barnier. Lord Frost vowed he would not 'blink' in the face of EU demands to accept continuing Brussels oversight of key areas of British law. The idea that after leaving we are subject to Brussels control is madness, it isn’t going to happen; why they thought it would fly is beyond me. It would seem the EU thinks that the British position is weak because they happen to have a few well placed stooges in other parties championing their cause. One important point to note, they aren’t in power, and they don’t have an 80 seat majority, Boris does!

An 80-strong majority and could almost certainly force the changes that Boris wanted in Parliament even if there was a significant Tory rebellion. At this stage of the game, who wants to blot their copybook by being a rebel without a viable cause!  

In Scotland, as the end of the road looms for SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon over her mad scheme of transitional membership of the EU that circumvents the rules, the public get treated to her attacking Boris Johnson. She has branded Boris a 'charlatan' over the idea of changing the Withdrawal Agreement. Nicola Sturgeon’s appalling lack of class shines through yet again. On Twitter, she tweeted:

'If true, this means repudiation by UK govt of a Treaty freely negotiated by it, & described by PM in GE as an ‘oven ready’ deal. This will significantly increase likelihood of no deal, and the resulting damage to the economy will be entirely Tory inflicted. What charlatans.'

Never happy that woman, always complaining, always moaning, always looking over her shoulder for Alex, her former mentor and alleged friend, and his buddies! 

To show, how Brussels treats us, they want EU trawlers to be guaranteed their current access to Britain's fishing grounds for ever. The Foreign Sec told the BBC's Andrew Marr show that this was unacceptable, adding:

'Having seen UK fisheries and the fishing industry pretty much decimated as a result of EU membership, the EU's argument is we should keep control of access to our own fisheries permanently low. That can't be right.'

The price of fish certainly seems a touchy subject to the EU; they had no problem however destroying the British fishing industry, while splashing the cash building foreign boats to fish our waters. And the help for the Brits, well that’s another story and not pleasant.

Finally, it is time the EU accepted that the joke is over and learned to accept the new reality which is coming in 2021, 1^st January, the game ends! Our membership last over four decades, we propped up the EU, they took our money and rebuilt Europe. As we walked the streets of Europe marvelling at how nice it was compared to places back here, we didn’t click that we paid for it. We paid more in than we got back for over 40 years of our 43 year membership, we were a cash cow. We ended up paying 20% of the EU budget, one fifth, and remember, there are 27 other members! It is time to let the clock run down and get on with rebuilding the UK.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University