Nigel Farage has branded the Brexit negotiations “a charade” as Downing Street downgrades the likelihood of a no-deal Brexit from “very likely” to “possible”.
The leader of the Brexit Party, currently in the process of relaunching as the Reform Party, or Reform UK, was responding to a breaking development in the ongoing UK-EU saga reported by Financial Times political editor George Parker.
“No deal no longer a “strong possibility” or “very likely”, as per [Prime Minister Boris Johnson],” Mr Parker told followers on Twitter.
“New Downing St formulation: ‘No deal is a potential outcome.’ It’s ‘possible’,” he said.
“I said last night that this was all a charade,” Mr Farage responded, in reference to Prime Minister Johnson’s claims that no-deal was “the most likely thing now” after the latest “final” deadline for an agreement expired — but, like all the other “final” deadlines from summer onwards, immediately extended.
The veteran Brexiteer had indeed tweeted shortly after the extension was announced that “No Deal is the only way Johnson can keep his election promises, I don’t believe he will do it. This is all a charade.”
The British government had originally stipulated that the terms of a UK-EU trade deal should be hammered out by the summer, so that British businesses, expatriates, and others would have ample time to prepare for the new systems and possible opportunities resulting from a so-called “no deal” exit on World Trade Organization (WTO) terms if one could not be agreed.
That deadline and every other supposedly “final” deadline which followed it has been pushed back, however, with the latest having came and went on Sunday the 13th of December.
With the EU-membership-in-all-but-name “transition” period now having just weeks left before it runs out at the end of 2020, it looked as though Prime Minister Johnson was finally committed to a clean break with the bloc, with the EU still making the same unacceptable demands for continued control over Britain’s national fisheries, state aid rules, and regulatory regime it has been making since 2017, if not 2016.
Nigel Farage has long predicted a sell-out, however, with the government having already agreed to pay the EU a multi-billion “divorce” settlement — or “ransom” — and allow Brussels to dictate Northern Ireland’s regulatory environment in exchange for essentially nothing in return.
With time now so tight before the end of the “transition” and the change in rhetoric on no-deal now being merely “possible”, the public will know whether Mr Farage’s predictions are correct fairly soon.
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