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This by @MESandbu is pretty sharp: identifies the route by which Johnson can, with his well-known chutzpah, betray the hard Brexiters voting for him ft.com/content/f6eb4d…
Basically - talk up “alternative arrangements”; get the EU to allow the standstill transition period to be extendable till “alternative arrangements” are agreed (which can, with chutzpah, be asserted to be likely to be a short period);
declare the backstop to be redundant (doesn’t matter if it’s still there - “it will never need to be used”); and claim some tweak over timing of payments to be a huge victory over the money issue.
The truth would be that “nothing has changed”: but would truth be a problem for Johnson?
(There are legal issues over whether transition could be extended “indefinitely” as Martin suggests: probably not. But “indefinitely” can be fudged eg by writing in a provision for agreed limited time extensions.)
You still have to get it (and in particular the Bill implementing it) through the HoC of course. Tricky with the DUP (unless bought off) and the inevitable band of furious hard Brexiters.
But at that point you say to Corbyn: “this leaves soft Brexit (CU, EEA) still on the table (the political declaration can be changed); if you vote this through we can then have an election to decide what the U.K. position on the final relationship will be;
and if you vote this down I’ll go to the country on a ‘you’ve blocked Brexit’ platform”.
Risky - especially as the Faragists will still be there complaining about betrayal - but given our voting system, a split Remain vote, and the likely problems in Labour in deciding how to respond, not a mad risk.
And if you want a historical model for this, try not Churchill (the model Johnson has tried to compare himself to) but Disraeli, a politician never much troubled by consistency: having brought down Peel for repealing the Corn Laws he rapidly switched 180 degrees./ends
