A WEAKER than usual Boris Johnson broke with the pre-speech propaganda that he would take a very defiant ‘do or die’ stance on leaving the EU during his speech at the Tory Party conference.
He was however scathing about parliament saying, ‘If parliament were a laptop, then the screen would be showing the pizza wheel of doom.
‘If parliament were a school, Ofsted would be shutting it down. If parliament were a reality TV show the whole lot of us would have been voted out of the jungle by now. But at least we could have watched the speaker being forced to eat a kangaroo testicle.
‘And the sad truth is that voters have more say over I’m a Celebrity than they do over this House of Commons, which refuses to deliver Brexit, refuses to do anything constructive and refuses to have an election just at the moment when voters are desperate for us to focus on their priorities.’
He continued: ‘What Leavers want, what Remainers want, what the whole world wants – is to be calmly and sensibly done with the subject, and to move on.
‘And that is why we are coming out of the EU on October 31st, come what may. Conference, let’s get Brexit done.
‘We can, we must and we will, even though things have not been made easier by the surrender bill. We will work for a deal with our EU friends; but whatever happens, we must come out by the end of October. Let’s get this thing done – and then let’s get ready to make our case to the country against the fratricidal, anti-Semitic Marxists who were in Brighton last week.
Johnson spent some time making the fatuous claim that ‘We are the party of the NHS precisely because we are the party of capitalism.’
In fact, it was Labour and Aneurin Bevan that established the NHS and ensured that it would survive.
Referring to the EU crisis, he said: ‘And I hope very much that our friends understand that and compromise in their turn.
‘Because if we fail to get an agreement because of what is essentially a technical discussion of the exact nature of future customs checks, when that technology is improving the whole time, then let us be in no doubt that the alternative is no deal.
‘That is not an outcome we want. It is not an outcome we seek at all. But let me tell you this, conference, it is an outcome for which we are ready.’
Johnson said there would be no checks ‘at or near (the Irish) border’ under his Brexit plan.
He continued: ‘Today in Brussels we are tabling what I believe are constructive and reasonable proposals … Which provide a compromise for both sides.’
He added: ‘We will under no circumstances have checks at or near the border in Northern Ireland.
‘We will respect the peace process and the Good Friday agreement.
‘And by a process of renewable democratic consent by the executive and assembly of Northern Ireland, we will go further and protect the existing regulatory arrangements for farmers and other businesses on both sides of the border.
‘And at the same time we will allow the UK – whole and entire – to withdraw from the EU, with control of our own trade policy from the start.’
He added of the popular mood: ‘I am afraid that after three and a half years people are beginning to feel that they are being taken for fools. They are beginning to suspect that there are forces in this country that simply don’t want Brexit delivered at all.
‘And if they turn out to be right in that suspicion, then I believe there will be grave consequences for trust in democracy. Let’s get Brexit done on 31st October.’
The deal Johnson wants is essentially to create ‘two borders’ for four years that will leave Northern Ireland with a special relationship with the EU, inside its single market, until 2025.
There are to be customs checks between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic and a regulatory border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the Irish Sea for four years.