IDS, in particular, turned its about-face into a car accident. He welcomed Boris Johnson`s article in which he praised the withdrawal agreement and scoffed at the idea of debating the deal at length, arguing that it had already been scrutinised in depth, but now it is said that parts of it are « buried in the fine print » – representing a £160 billion liability for the UK. Given that the two MEPs voted in favour of the agreement, they hardly covered their tracks. It`s less of a crime drama than a comedy – not so much Professor Moriarty as Dr. Evil. Colombo caught Davis in five minutes without having to say a single thing. Agatha Christie wouldn`t have to write a confusing salon resolution. After Duncan Smith stood above the body with the murder weapon from the front page, his only defense was to call Hercule Poirot an « unelected Brussels bureaucrat. » Duncan Smith voted in favour of the deal, which he criticised when it was presented to Parliament. We were told it was an « oven-ready deal. » But although the Withdrawal Agreement occupies a place of honour in the Conservative Party`s manifesto and no Conservative MP votes against it, some Brexiteer-Tory MPs have now backfired – including David Davis and now Iain Duncan Smith. The European Commission has rejected a call by senior Conservative officials to rewrite the Brexit withdrawal agreement in order to reduce the amount of money Britain has to pay to the EU. Does their criticism of the deal have any value? As James Crisp pointed out, Duncan Smith`s claim for £160 billion in liabilities assumes that every investment by the European Investment Bank fails without restructuring (the bank has a AAA rating) – and that EU countries decide to call on capital instead of finding other ways to cover the liabilities. While this is worrisome for many, Duncan Smith`s complaint is the Withdrawal Act that he and other Conservative MPs passed by the House of Commons last year, which he says is now the problem.

Iain Duncan Smith says Boris Johnson`s financial liabilities in the withdrawal agreement were too great So why say one thing so obviously a few months ago and the opposite today? They may have really forgotten about the platform they ran on or what they voted for a few months ago. But to paraphrase a famous quote from Doctor Who, « No one could be as stupid as it seems. » The most likely scenario is that they never wanted to say what they said and waited for their time until they thought it was a reasonable time to advocate the destruction of an agreement they never liked. Davis, for his part, claimed that a free trade agreement was « implicit » in the withdrawal agreement. But all the deal does is for both sides to do their best to « negotiate » a free trade agreement. In any event, a breach of the agreement cannot simply be decided unilaterally by a party and does not entail unilateral power to terminate the treaty. In fact, Duncan Smith later confirmed this in an article falsely claiming that the Withdrawal Agreement was a « work in progress » and that the UK could always « reject » it. It also appears to be trying to remove provisions from the citizens` rights deal – which are already below what the Vote Leave campaign promised – and falsely claims that the EU refuses to negotiate services (the EU`s proposal for a trade deal contains 34 pages on the subject). The Withdrawal Agreement allows the Northern Ireland Assembly to terminate the Special Protocol at the Irish border in certain circumstances – but otherwise there is no unilateral authority to terminate it. As I mentioned at length, this means that disputes relating to the interpretation of the agreement must be resolved through its dispute resolution rules. For example, in the event that arbitrators find a breach, there could be fines – but there is no mention of termination of the contract. Alternatively, it is possible to revise the agreement with the consent of all parties – but the EU is not interested in renegotiating.

« Change is inevitable, with or without an agreement on the new partnership, » Barnier said. « Businesses and citizens need to be prepared. » This autumn, the British government will face a painful European decision. She knows, thanks to the protests of the economy and the calculations of her advisers, how economically catastrophic a no-deal Brexit will be. She also knows how difficult it will be to sell a Brexit « deal » to her backbenchers, as they will tend to welcome accusations of treason in the face of an unreliable and malicious EU. It should certainly not be assumed that economic rationality will prevail in these circumstances. Few prime ministers have voluntarily resigned from office, a thought that seems to be at least as true for Boris Johnson as it is for any of his predecessors. Iain Duncan Smith`s tweets are, among other things, a warning shot through the Prime Minister`s bow that any deal he now signs with the EU will be subject to special scrutiny within the party, probably even to the point of reading the « fine print » of the text. As clever as the drafting of the deal may be, however minimal its terms may be, there will undoubtedly be a significant number of Conservative MPs who will refuse to fight with the devil to back the concessions needed to avoid a no-deal Brexit. The question of whether Johnson will be able and willing to face it is a question that is impossible to answer at this stage.

However, it would be premature to assume that it will. It is no coincidence that many Brexiteers use Analogies from the Second World War with such enthusiasm. Many of them, including perhaps Duncan Smith, really see themselves in a heroic light and are willing to make every possible sacrifice in the fight against the evil they claim to see in the EU. Such reckless assurance, such insensitivity to external events and internal logic, has led radical Brexiters to the dominance of the Conservative Party over the past two decades. Needless to say, given the position in which he ran for election, this is pure quackery. Note that the Brexit Party, which opposed the withdrawal agreement in the last election, won two percent of the vote. There is therefore not the slightest argument in favour of a democratic mandate to denounce the Withdrawal Agreement here. Brexiteers like Iain Duncan Smith have claimed that the financial liabilities signed by Boris Johnson in the deal are too large, that the deal « costs too much » and « deprives us of true national independence ». He complained that a clause « buried in the fine print » meant that britons were « persisting » in the EU`s loan portfolio, the very deal he not only voted for, but also deprived MPs of more time to debate in parliament. .