Brexit: Johnson strategy resembles pure game of chance

Brexit is becoming eerily like Deal or No Deal, the Channel 4 game show Noel Edmonds used to host where a contestant kept opening 22 boxes, valued between 1p and £250,000.

It was a pure game of chance, but contestants were encouraged to reveal their “game plans”. They varied between crystal therapy, cosmic vibes and complicated algorithms. They all shared one characteristic: they were useless. The outcome was random – it was a pure game of chance.

Now in his latest interview with the BBC, Boris Johnson, the favourite to become the next Tory prime minister, claimed he could dive back into the closed negotiations around the backstop and fix it with "abundant, abundant technical fixes". In other words, finding a unicorn.

When questioned over this by Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC’s political editor, he said: “Well, they do actually, you have in very large measure they do, you have trusted trader schemes, all sorts of schemes that you could put into place.”

I was Boris Johnson’s boss: he is utterly unfit to be British prime minister

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Sharp increase in business insolvencies in Northern Ireland since Brexit

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Irish Government ‘strategically stupid’, claims former Ukip MP

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TV debate cancelled as Boris Johnson refuses to face rival

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He also claimed that “creative ambiguity” around the £39 billion divorce payment would allow a revised deal. Yes, yes, he has a sure-fire strategy to open the right box.

Johnson refused to answer questions about the row he had with his girlfriend in their flat last week, which was recorded by their neighbours (who then handed the recording to the Guardian). I have mixed feelings about this. To me, it has been borderline intrusion on privacy, especially for Carrie Symonds.

The fact the police were called was down to the neighbours who claimed they knocked on the door (Symonds has contested this claim). My own view: some media people allowed their views on Johnson colour a decision they would not have taken in other circumstances.

Donohoe prepares a tight budget

Over here, Paschal Donohoe - Prudent is my second name - is beginning to plan for Boris opening a box that reveals only 1p.

Our main story today, by Fiach Kelly and Cliff Taylor, gives a heads-up on his summer economic statement that will be published later today.

As we report Donohoe is now going to draft a tight budget that will cater for a ‘no-deal Brexit’. If that worse-case scenario happens, the Governments says it will turn an expected surplus in 2020 into a deficit in the range of up to 1.5 per cent per year.

Already the “fiscal space” - wiggle room to you and me. is in the order of about €800 million. But governments tent to find Boris Johnson’s “creative ambiguity” around budget time and always seem to magic extra money from somewhere to sprinkle like fairy dust on grateful taxpayers.

Donohoe’s mid-season thinking will be disclosed today when the summer economic statement is read out in the Dáil. It will be interesting to see how the main Opposition parties respond in the light of the recent election results. Are we getting a change of strategy from any of them?

Expect Eir waves at Communications Committee

The Communications Committee continues its investigation into the National Broadband Plan (NBP) and why it’s now going to cost the Exchequer €3 billion to bring fast fibre to (potentially) everybody in the country.

Eir will be before the committee today. Some politicians blame it for our current woes. It was a bidder and then decided to ‘cherry pick’ (as politicians claim) the most promising connections in rural Ireland, leaving the NBP with only the least economic and hardest to reach.

Well Eir is before the Committee today and as Jack Horgan-Jones reports the telecoms company will tell TDs and Senators it could roll out broadband for €1 billion, a fraction of the cost of the NBP, to the 540,000 rural properties.

Chief executive Carolan Lennon will not have a one-way conversation. Eir did leave the bidding process for the NDP, which some TDs view as leaving the State in the lurch.

There’s also an interesting quote from a Dept of Communications spokesperson who says the bid submitted by Eir came in “as multiples of €1 million”. That will make for an interesting discussion.

The Cabinet meets this morning. Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed will seek approval for a proposal to phase out fur farming.

The Taoiseach travels to Manchester later in the week for a British-Irish Council meeting. And then on June 30th he returns to Brussels for another summit to discuss candidates for the two top jobs in the Union, presidents of the council and of the commission.

Best reads

Fintan O'Toole looks at the contrasting attitudes of Ireland and England to Europe.

Marie O'Halloran reports a Dáil row is brewing over the Irish Army's role in a German-led battle group.

Simon Carswell has a fascinating interview with his namesake Douglas Carswell, the former Tory and Ukip MEP who claims the UK will crash out of the EU in October, and that the Irish Government's approach has been "strategically stupid".

Playbook

Dáil

14.00: Leaders’ Questions

14.32: Order of Business

15.02: Taoiseach’s Questions

15.47: Minister for Education and Skills Joe McHugh will be answering parliamentary questions

17.17: Topical Issues

18.05: Summer Economic Statements

20.05: Private Members’ Business (Sinn Féin): - Motion re Home Help

22.05: Dáil adjourns

Seanad

14.30: Commencement matters

15.30: Order of Business

16.45: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017 - Committee Stage. This now looks unlikely to conclude by end of the week, or by end of the year for that matter.

19.00: Redress for Women Resident in Certain Institutions (Amendment) Bill 2019.

Committees

13.00: Committee on Agriculture is unveiling its report on the Future of the Beef Sector in the context of Food Wise 2025.

14.45: An Coiste um Ghaeilge ag seoladh tuarascála - ‘Tuarascáil ar na Dúshláin a Bhaineann le hIonaid Cúraim Leanaí Lán-Ghaeilge a Reáchtáil i gCeantair Ghaeltachta’.

16.00: Committee on Business, Enterprise and Innovation is conducting detailed scrutiny of the Industrial and Provident Societies (Amendment) Bill 2018 with representatives from relevant bodies.

16.00: Select Committee on Budgetary Oversight will discuss the budget and economic issues with two high-profile economists: Colm McCarthy of UCD, and Dr Stephen Kinsella, UL.

17.00: Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment continues its investigation to examine the National Broadband Plan process and how best to proceed, and the best means to roll out rural broadband. Representatives of Eir will be present.