Boris Johnson cannot risk being side-tracked and humiliated like Baldrick by the bullying Blackadders of Brussels
FRANCE and Germany have drummed up what Baldrick might call a “cunning and subtle plan”.
Bumbling Boris, our half-witted new Prime Minister, will be tempted to buy a shiny version of Theresa May’s car-crash Chequers deal, rebadged and resprayed but still the same old banger.
Britain will be offered an 11th-hour concession it cannot refuse without risking the fury of Remainers, spurred on by subversive Commons Speaker John Bercow.
Like most of Baldrick’s cunning plans, though, this one’s a clunker.
Boris loves to be loved but he knows with absolute certainty he cannot survive the EU’s cloying embrace.
For all his cheery jokes in Berlin and Paris, Britain is on course for a snap election on — or even before — the Brexit deadline of October 31, following a tax-slashing emergency Budget.
MERKEL WILL STOLIDLY STAND HER GROUND
Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have not blinked. They have no intention of allowing Boris to claim victory. Britain must be punished or the creaking EU will disintegrate.
Mrs Merkel may have laughed at Boris’s jokes but she has survived as one of the West’s longest-serving leaders by stolidly standing her ground.
The only time she broke the habit was when she opened the floodgates to a million Syrian refugees.
She hopes the Brexit problem will resolve itself. Given time, rebel Brits will come to heel.
So Theresa May’s withdrawal treaty will not be reopened. We might see some feeble tinkering with the Irish backstop but it will not be scrapped.
BOOBY TRAP WILL BLOW UP IN THEIR FACES
We will remain half in, half out, with no rights, no say and a £30billion bill for the privilege — which Boris is now threatening to spend here in Britain.
You’d have to be Baldrick himself to fall for Macron and Merkel’s cunning stunt.
But unless they tear up the wretched treaty — already trashed three times in Parliament — the booby trap will blow up in their faces.
Boris has no choice. He either leads his party to likely victory in a once-and-for-all No Deal election, or like lambs to the slaughter under the knives of Nigel Farage’s rampaging Brexit Party.
So far, he has played a blinder. Polls show a steadily growing surge of support as we head for Halloween. This is a no-brainer.
Merkel and Macron, along with clucking clown Donald Tusk, have completely misjudged the tide of history.
PROJECT FEAR IS A MONSTROUS WORK OF FICTION
Boris, a Classics scholar, knows he must now take it at the flood and lead Britain on to fortune.
Not only is Project Fear a monstrous work of fiction — it is the EU that is fearful, not the UK, as we prepare to become a free-trading, low-tax, offshore sovereign nation.
Forget No Deal. Hundreds of “mini-deals” are already being sealed on cross-border transport, airports, shipping, insurance and foreign residency status.
There will be no border on the Irish frontier unless Europe or Dublin impose one.
PM CANNOT RISK BEING SIDETRACKED
There will, according to the Deputy Mayor of Calais, be no hold-ups for British trucks crossing the Channel, or EU vehicles coming our way.
Nor will other major cities risk local jobs, especially German car towns facing meltdown on world markets. French farmers can see which side their croissants are buttered, too.
Brussels knows world trade will flood to Britain as we set up freeports in Liverpool, Belfast, Teesside and Aberdeen.
Project Fear will be seen for what it is — a con trick by ex-Chancellor George Osborne’s tainted Treasury and a complicit Bank of England.
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Not to mention the International Monetary Fund, where Mr Osborne — having turned London’s once-proud Evening Standard into a personal Project Fear propaganda sheet — is seeking to become President.
Boris Johnson’s job now is to prove Britain can thrive after Brexit, halt the crimewave on our streets, clean up the schools and put the NHS back on its feet.
He cannot risk being side-tracked and humiliated like Baldrick by the bullying Blackadders of Brussels.
BORIS IS A WELCOME CHANGE
LOSING office after her vain attempt to deliver Brexit must have been painful for Theresa May.
It would take a heart of stone . . . etc.
But it will be even more agonising to watch the man she did everything possible to keep out of Number Ten succeeding so brilliantly in her place.
Love him or loathe him – and even Remainers find it hard not to love him – the new PM has totally transformed the mood of the British people after one month in Downing Street.
Boris has spread optimism, good cheer and a Churchillian esprit de corps across the nation.
What a welcome change from three hideous years of pessimism and despair.
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