What is Boris up to?

[Workingman]

He has written piece in the Telegraph where he rehashes some of his thoughts on Brexit. There is the side of the bus claim of £350m for the NHS. Then there is his 'go whistle' stand on the divorce bill, and also his well known view on the single market and customs union which he says would make a "complete mockery" of the referendum.

Well, he would say those things, wouldn't he? The interesting thing is the timing.

Mrs May is to make a keynote speech in Florence next Friday to set out the UK's wish for a "special partnership" with the EU after Brexit. There are no details, though the scheduled Brexit talks have been put back to accommodate it. What will she be saying?

Given all that it looks like Boris is doing a few things. The first is a shot across May's bows not to cave in on Brexit. The second is a warning that if Brexit is watered down he is off. Boris might be a buffoon, but he is not daft. He knows that if Brexit goes pear shaped he will be one of those to take the blame. That would almost certainly end his chances of becoming Tory leader/PM and those are the things he wants most in his life.

[cromwell]

He might want it, but he is unlikely to get it, imo.

Boris Johnson has already been knifed - twice - by those in his own party. Once by Michael Howard so that his favourite David Cameron could advance, and once by Michael Gove in the last leadership election. So the Tories ended up with Theresa May as the compromise, "safe pair of hands" (my God) candidate.

Boris is hated by many in his own party, maybe because he has the knack of being like by lots of people. This is why he twice won the Mayoral election in London against the demographics, because people like him.

People like May and Osborne and Gove don't have this. People don't like them or warm to them and they don't like the easy popularity of Johnson.

It's no secret that May would like to sack him but daren't.

Things will start to hot up two years to eighteen months before the next election. For the moment Boris is just keeping his name up there.

[TheOstrich]

I think he's distancing himself from what is going to be the Government's agenda / pathway towards Brexit, which as Frank said, makes me wonder exactly what May is going to say in Florence next week - and what concessions we are going to be making .....

[cromwell]

If we are to retake control of our borders, which was after all one of the drivers of Brexit, we are going to need many more customs / immigration officers.

Anyone seen any job adverts for these posts? No, me neither. This worries me.

[Workingman]

I see that Amber Rudd has told Boris not to be a 'back seat driver' and to get on with his day job.

It is not actually a Brexit thing, it never was. This is about manoeuvering to be in the best position come the fall of May and the future leadership of the Tories in the long term.

One scenario being bandied about is that the day after Brexit May is challenged and removed by (put name here). The Tories then lose the next general election and the 'winners', probably Labour, have to make Brexit work. Brexit will prove to be difficult to manage and Labour will get the blame. Cue the glorious resurrection of Boris to lead us onwards and upwards. Job done.

[cromwell]

Robbie Burns had it; 'The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglay'!

[Suff]

Ah yes, our dear Boris. The buffoon. The one who could never be London Mayor once, let alone twice, or even three times had he decided to run again..

Always underestimated is our dear Boris. The Londoners knew the truth which was that Boris brought Business into London as London's mayor. Made London a place businesses wanted to come to. In short, did the job rather than making a political statement. The replacement Routemaster bus was Built in Britain. Where do they make Electric busses? Only in China, although if we wish to pay twice as much Germany will sell us something half as good for twice the price.

Whilst Boris is a politician and there will always be a political side to whatever any politician says; I see the majority of what Boris is saying to be a reminder. To remind the politicians who are brokering this deal that voters voted for what they were offered. Now it is up to the politicians to actually deliver what the people believed would be the end result of that, or at least as close to it as they can come.

Whilst having a look at the claims, I did a bit of delving into the documents on the EU payments and the EU budget, especially around VAT. If you read the Wiki page on the rebate you realise that the rebate means we can't apply for EU funding because we lose 60% of the EU funding until we have reached the payment into the EU that we would have made before the rebate. If you look into the budget you find that the VAT legislation has been set up specifically to negate the impact of the rebate, where the UK is paying far more VAT subscriptions to the EU than the rest of the countries.

If we look at it that way, the 350m per week for the NHS is more of a reality. In fact if you look at it one way, 350m per week is much more achievable for the NHS post Brexit because of the way the EU insists that we spend money in certain areas to meet EU directives. 350m per week is 18bn or so a year. We already pay 90bn a year, or more, into the NHS, if we remove 4.8bn of EU subscriptions and redirect our funds away from EU mandated payments, such as paying UK child benefit for children, living in the EU, of parents working in the UK. A conservative sum for that is somewhere around 1b n a year. Never mind the rest of the payments the EU mandate we spend our money on, the gap between claims and reality closes.

Boris may be seen to be playing games. But there is nothing wrong with reminding the politicians that they are on the hook with the voters to deliver what the Brexit campaign promised. Or a reasonable facsimile of it.

If it happens to position him for a better position in the Tory party? For me we need a few more Boris' and Haig's and a lot less Blair's and Browns...