Angus Robertson: It's been four long years and Brexiteers still don't get it

Long gone are the lies about an “oven-ready” deal to be struck with our biggest export market. BoJo is now warning that a No-Deal outcome is a growing prospect. With time running out before tomorrow’s deadline, EU leaders have been told as well that an agreement is unlikely.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told the bloc’s 27 leaders, including France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel, that talks were “difficult”.

Intensive talks over recent weeks have been between UK and EU negotiators, but have failed to overcome differences in key areas, including competition rules and fishing rights. The window of opportunity for Boris Johnson to reach an agreement before the UK stops following EU trade rules on December 31 is closing. When asked if he shared Johnson’s view that there is now the “strong possibility” of No Deal, Taoiseach Micheal Martin said: “That’s the prevailing mood right now.”

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In front of our very eyes, the great blond Brexit buffoon is trying to soften up the public by suggesting that his failing trade talks with the EU are actually a good outcome. Now the euphemism is being peddled of an “Australian outcome” to explain the hardest of Brexits, which isn’t even advocated by the Australians as a good thing.

Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull appeared on Question Time this week to explain that “Australia’s relationship with the EU is not one from a trade point of view that Britain would want, frankly … you’ve chosen a very courageous time to leave the largest free trade zone in the world”.

That is a polite way of saying the UK has got it very wrong. Australia is on the other side of the world and not integrated with just-in-time supply chains with the European single market.

Even former allies of Boris Johnson are speaking out about the self-harm being perpetrated against the UK by the UK Government. BoJo’s former chief of staff Nick Boles has not minced his words: “As the most incompetent PM since Eden softens us up for the worst diplomatic failure since Suez, is anyone really surprised? ‘Character is destiny’ said Heraclitus. The British people will be paying for the flaws in Johnson’s character for decades to come.”

At the heart of the issue is the Brexiteer conceit that they want to be able to access the European market while having the “sovereign” right to undermine European standards and undercut their prices. The same outrageous entitlement one regularly hears from born-to-rule Tories is being extended to the Brexit negotiations, and the Europeans just won’t accept it. As the Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said yesterday at the European Council meeting: “It’s not about sovereignty, or being free — we are all free.” For Rutte and other European leaders it’s about the practicalities of the single market.

They won’t allow the single market to be weakened. They also won’t play ball when BoJo tries to divide EU unity on the negotiations, which he has sought to do with interventions for direct discussions with Paris and Berlin. Turning up for dinner in Brussels with Ursula van der Leyen, seeking to undermine EU negotiator Michel Barnier, making embarrassing quips about him being French and then having no fresh proposals is the kind of unserious and offensive Boris Johnson we know all too well.

READ MORE: No-Deal Brexit will impact on everything, including an independent Scotland

Four years on from the Brexit referendum, the Brexiteers still want to cherry-pick. They still don’t get it. Having misunderstood EU resolve and misled the public about remaining in the European single market, they are still holding out for a trade deal which would guarantee access for UK exports without fully committing to a level playing field on competition. It is a fiction. It is a big lie. Now BoJo says that No Deal “would be wonderful for the UK”. At this point it is worth recalling that the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) has estimated that this would lead to a £40 billion hit to the UK economy and cause 300,000 job losses. That is not wonderful, it is a calamity.

Tory Brexiteers can’t or won’t tell the public how much their food bills will go up by or be straight about the damage they will wreak on the economy, all on top of the impact of coronavirus. Right across Scotland, there are literally tens of thousands of people who voted No to Scottish independence in 2014 but are absolutely mortified today by the hard Brexit being foisted on us. Even amongst Leave voters, many privately acknowledge they did not imagine we would end up in this extreme situation. We must hold out the hand of friendship and understanding to them all and encourage them to join Scotland’s growing pro-independence majority.

An alternative future is possible to Brexit Britain.