Another EU Miscalculation Looming?

The slim hope that Boris and the EU could cook up a take it or leave it deal to be pushed through Parliament by 2300 hours on 31 October appear to be receding. The EU’s response to a generous compromise has been predictably contemptuous and it is difficult to see any negotiation resulting, despite heavy hints that even further UK movement on sensitive positions could be forthcoming. And why should the EU move? They have already got everything they want from May’s disgraceful unconditional surrender. They seen to feel that if they continue to hold out the worst outcome could be May’s deal and the best revocation and crushing new conditions on UK membership.

This may be a miscalculation. After all the EU has arrogant form having offered Cameron nothing and seen that misjudgement backfire spectacularly. The EU must be hoping that once a humiliating extension has been imposed the following general election will result in either a hung assembly or a majority for anything but Brexit. They could be wrong because there is a good case to be made that Boris could win an election premised upon people versus Parliament, the courts and Brussels. Whilst no overall majority is favoured by the bookmakers, the odds against a Conservative win are shortening. It’s 11 to 8 on for the former and 6 to 4 against for the latter – a difference but not one that is likely to make a punter substantially richer one way or the other. Three weeks could be a very long time in poitics and, meanwhile, the odds of Magic Grandpa triumphing are a thumping 12 to one against.

Whilst at school, playing snooker in the Newcastle-upon-Tyne YMCA one lunchtime,  my opponent, Bobby Mitchell, the legendary outside-left, offered me an excellent and enduring piece of betting advice when I volunteered a forecast on a forthcoming horse race – “never mind the prices,” he said, “just pick the winners.” With characteristic hubris the EU may ignore the odds and the perfectly reasonable concerns of, for example, all those continental workers who make the 750,000 motor cars exported to UK each year, and reason that, for them, things could only get better.

But if Boris does win a majority, in order to see off the Brexit Party, it will be with a manifesto insisting on an exit deal at least as tough as the one on the table or no deal. It is also likely that his terms and conditions will include a minimum period of clarification, certainly not substantial negotiation. In the circumstances, the EU will have blown it again. Victims of their own greed they should have picked the winner not been seduced by the potential winnings. But try selling that to the aforementioned car workers in retrospect. Schadenfreude?