Brexit and Boris: weird and getting weirder

There is something strange about Boris Johnson’s approach to Brexit, something out of the ordinary, even weird. He clearly thinks that securing Britain's exit from the European Union by or before October 31st is a matter of willpower – courage, imagination, ingenuity, self-belief and determination. If Britain could regain the bulldog spirit of Churchill, "let the British lions roar again" as he once put it, a new golden age would be upon us.

When anyone asks him what his actual plans are, in view of both the Parliamentary arithmetic which confounded Theresa May and the inflexible stand of Brussels, he accuses them of defeatist negativity, adding that this is how we got into the Brexit mess in the first place. So he hasn't bothered with a plan. What matters is to believe. The question of course is this: did Theresa May fail because she lacked courage, imagination, ingenuity, self-belief and determination? If so, providing the missing willpower would make all the difference. I suspect Boris's model here is a sporting one. Even with all the skills and talents, a rugby team without the will to win is unlikely to do so.

But can we honestly say that is why Mrs May's negotiations fell at the last hurdle – failing three times to gain a Commons majority? Wasn't it almost entirely because she included in her package the so-called Irish backstop? With no lack of courage or persistence, she failed repeatedly to have the backstop removed or modified, for instance by making it time-limited. What is it that persuades the Tory leadership now, a cabinet of Brexiteers committed to no-deal if necessary, that "one more heave" will be all its takes to get rid of the backstop?

Even in the comments section of the Daily Telegraph, which has become the house magazine of the Boris Johnson camp, there is no clue as to why they think this is so. The answer may lie in the sort of people they are, rather than in any explicit political conviction. First, they do not understand the Irish situation. Their level of insight is about that of Karen Bradley, the MP appointed by Theresa May to be Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who famously said she had not realised that in Northern Ireland political loyalties were tribal and defined by religion.

That points to the second reason: the assumption that economic self-interest – not cultural factors like religious affiliation, for instance – was the primary defining motivator of human conduct. It is assumed, rightly, that a no-deal outcome to Brexit would inflict significant harm to Continental economies, and assumed, wrongly, that this is sufficient to persuade them to give way over the backstop. He has now made that a precondition of any further talks – as if they were the petitioner, not he.

So unless they agree to his demands he will not talk to them and will bring harm to their economic interests, not just by the disturbances to trade arising from the absence of a deal but also by withholding the £39 billion Britain has agreed to pay the EU to cover existing liabilities. He hasn't given any weight to their other non-economic interests, such as solidarity with Dublin in its desire to avoid a physical border between north and south, and their intense attachment to the principles behind the Single Market.

This suggests the third factor in play. Despite having been posted there as a newspaper reporter, Mr Johnson appears not to have understood how the Brussels mind works. Those who buy into the EU project, as almost everyone in Brussels does, are working to unify the disparate strands that the Continent consists of, to advance cooperation and progress, and to guarantee the long-term peace of Europe. This isn't a journey with a final destination, such as a United States of Europe along American lines, but a continuous process of resolving all the large and small causes of tension and conflict between member states and their peoples. It is a form of perpetual motion as new causes of tension tend continually to arise. But gradually, unity will grow and Europe will acquire a sense of its own identity and a sense of common purpose. But France, so to speak, will always be France, and Germany Germany. But this grand purpose behind the creation of the European Union is not one that appeals to Boris Johnson.

The Good Friday Agreement was a bold and visionary attempt to reconcile the conflicting demands of Northern Ireland's Catholics to feel Irish and Northern Ireland's Protestants to feel British. The former was achieved by having no physical barrier between the two parts of Ireland, by allowing the option of dual citizenship, and by granting legal parity to the two cultural traditions.

Having two distinct customs regimes north and south means that the passage of goods across the border has to be regulated somehow. To do so by having actual customs posts and checkpoints has been ruled out as too dangerous, as it would undermined the Good Friday Agreement. Boris Johnson appears to believe that this cross-border regulation can be handled invisibly, by the use of electronic devices. To doubt this, he has said, is defeatism. If scientists can put a man on the moon, they can certainly fix the Irish backstop problem. How, he doesn't know, but that does not matter. He has not taken into account, however, the fact that he has to persuade Brussels and Dublin of this as well as Parliament. They all have vetoes. No quantity of Boris's unique blend of charm and bluster can brush them aside.

But what is strange is his sincere belief that they can. He has no need of solid evidence, just willpower. To change the metaphor from rugby for cricket, he is walking to the crease to score a hundred, but has omitted to take a bat with him. That really is weird.