Boris Johnson got where he is today by telling lies about Europe. He made stories up as a journalist. He told fibs on an industrial scale in the referendum campaign. Now he is telling whoppers as prime minister too. There was an “oven-ready” EU trade deal. Not true. The chances of no deal were “absolutely zero”. Same again. Britain was prepared for any outcome after 31 December. Utterly false. The prospect of EU tariffs on British goods was “totally and utterly absurd”. Another porkie.
Mr Johnson was again having us on when he gave the impression that he was going to Brussels on Wednesday to get an EU withdrawal trade deal over the line. A good deal is there to be done, he told the Commons. But in the evening it was the very opposite. Mr Johnson arrived in Brussels to tell the EU that Britain was not ready to make a fisheries agreement, would never accept the European court of justice as the arbiter on future disputes, and could not agree to any form of agreement on trading standards that tied Britain’s hands to EU rules. The two sides now remain far apart, the Commons was told on Thursday. » | Editorial | Thursday, December 10, 2020
