Boris Johnson’s Brexit proposals are a series of contradictions – he knows it, and so does Brussels

Editorial: The plan is essentially a version of Theresa May’s ‘max-fac’ proposals from two years ago. It wasn’t accepted by the EU then, and probably won’t be in its new formulation now

It is generally a good rule in life not to over-promise and under-deliver. It is also a rule, like so many, that Boris Johnson seems to find irksome. His Brexit policy is starting to leave the country and his supporters feeling rather short-changed. He was supposed to be better than this, surely?

What, for example, happened to the defiant overnight spin about Mr Johnson’s “take it or leave it” Brexit plan? The “final offer”? It was always an obvious bluff and the EU appears to have called it even before Mr Johnson could trot it out to the eagerly expectant Conservative conference delegates – the easiest crowd imaginable. Instead, they had to put up with the former leader of the Leave campaign bizarrely asking them to agree with him that “We are Europeans”. They demurred.

The formal letter from Mr Johnson to Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, contained an offer, which broadly means keeping Northern Ireland inside the EU single market’s regulations for a “prolonged period”, but with the province firmly outside the EU customs union, post-Brexit.

This would mean that rules about agriculture, food, animal health, welfare and the like, so-called phyto issues, would be identical across the island of Ireland. The customs issue would be dealt with by having some minimal checks undertaken as far as possible from the actual border itself, presumably in anonymous lorry parks many miles away from the old checkpoints and watchtowers – out of sight, out of mind. Such lorry parks and customs depots would be situated in the north and south of the border. In addition, the Northern Ireland executive and assembly would need to be content with these arrangements, in effect offering the DUP a veto over them.

The British government has presented the package in terms that sound entirely reasonable – and a far cry from the “take it or leave it” spin. So innocuous do the new arrangements seem that it would make the European Commission ostentatiously petulant to reject them out of hand. So it will not. The EU is well aware of the blame game, and has no wish to be the party seen to be wrecking the negotiations. Still, the proposals leave too many questions.

What, for example, if the UK or Northern Ireland wished to vary its regulatory framework, and have rules that started to diverge from those in the EU? Or if the EU wished to do the same, and its new single market rules were unacceptable to the UK or Northern Ireland? Would Northern Ireland be in a separate market with different rules to the rest of the UK? And how would that be managed and consistent with the spirit of UK unionism? If Northern Ireland had an “opt out” from accepting American chlorinated chickens, how would that be policed across the Irish Sea?

What if the attempt to frame a UK-EU free trade agreement collapsed and either or both sides found themselves having to apply tariffs or quotas on produce?

What if the UK-US free trade deal requires the UK or Northern Ireland to alter its regulations on goods and services, and then have to diverge from EU norms?

What if, say, Ireland decided one day to join the Schengen scheme and have passport-free movement with all other EU member states? Would the UK-Ireland common travel area be able to survive such a change?

The Johnson blueprint has a faint echo of the “max-fac” proposals that Theresa May put forward about two years ago – in effect a partial membership of the EU single market, allowing for future regulatory divergence by simply ignoring it. This idea was rejected by the EU then, and will probably be rejected in its new formulation now, after a respectable period.

The British are still frenetically insisting on having their cake and eating it. When the EU politely points out that it is not possible, the reaction is merely to reiterate that having our cake and eating it is “democratic”, the only way Brexit can get past parliament and will be good for everyone in the long run. No amount of Johnsonian rhetoric or threats or grandstanding can save Brexit from collapsing under the weight of its own contractions. Besides, the EU knows full well that the supposed alternative – no deal – is illegal under British law.

So that’s that for the Johnson plan, even if the EU agrees to study it closely, or some such, to avoid looking arrogant.

Mr Johnson is supposed to be the man who has the “pizzazz” to deliver Brexit. According to his leadership pitch over the summer, to which he gave the acronym DUDE, he was supposed to, by now, have “D”elivered Brexit, “U”nited the country, “D”efeated Jeremy Corbyn and “E”nergised the nation. He has done none of them, and shows no sign of ever doing so. The dude is turning out to be a bit of a dud, after all.