Brexit: the only certainty is incompetence

"Boris Johnson is to spearhead a pro-Brexit push at Tory party conference in a move that threatens to humiliate party bigwigs" says The Sun. "The Sun can reveal the former Foreign Secretary has signed up to give a keynote speech at one ‘fringe’ meeting over the four-day event in Birmingham next month".

This is, of course, not news. The ultras plan to release a "no deal" Brexit plan to take back the initiative. More than likely it will be a rehash of prior works from the ERG's Brexit guru, Lee Rotherham, whose most recent report pulls the same old trick. 

The default scenario of a set of ad hoc arrangements means No Deal coverage should be more honestly discussed in terms of delivering a Strongly Mitigated No Deal. The exact level of mitigation cannot be predicted and is a significant variable.

So what they actually mean by no deal is a "mitigating" padded no deal. Which is not "no deal". The absence of a deal is "no deal". This is an admission that there is no such thing as reliance on "WTO rules" contrary to everything the Tory propaganda machine has said.  

Essentially the "no deal" scenario doesn't exist. It's a choice between a single, coherent deal before Brexit day, or multiple, ad hoc deals after Brexit day. Even at its simplest, however, it is going to take days, weeks and even months to put together the whole range of deals. 

The "no deal" as envisaged by the ERG could never be part of the Withdrawal Agreement since they reject the backstop for Northern Ireland and have designs on paying nothing on exit. They would be seeking mitigation after the fact, having dropped us all in it. It all then comes down to what the EU needs to do out of self-interest and whether it is prepared to show any mercy. This is not what you would call an intelligent plan. 

Our fate now rests on whether the performance in October is enough to de-throne Mrs May and whether Johnson carries enough support to win the day. Since none of the factions can command a majority May is probably safe. A leadership contest would be a huge distraction at a critical period, with a completely unknown result. Your guess is as good as mine.