It seems today is the day to play a "what does Johnson want on Brexit?" game

"He wants a Deal!"
"No he doesn't want a Deal!"

Hang on. What if he actually doesn't know? Or doesn't consistently know?

A thread

There are two ways to look at intractable problems for a politician.

The first is that they know what they want to do to solve a problem, but there is some insurmountable barrier in their way.

The second is they don't actually know what they want to do.

Think back a moment to Theresa May's premiership.

She essentially wanted:
a Brexit hard enough to end Freedom of Movement
a Brexit soft enough to seek to lessen damage to the UK economy
no border between N Ireland and rest of UK

What was the insurmountable problem:
- her MPs could not live with the implications of and
together (they saw the relationship with the EU as too close), so rejected it in the Meaningful Votes

So now to Johnson.

What Brexit does Johnson want?

He wants to "get Brexit done" and have an "oven ready deal", but we had no idea before the December election what *sort* of outcome he wants.

Johnson has not been able to articulate - with any precision or consistency - what he actually wants on Brexit at any stage, other than "getting it done".

If you don't know what you want, you're not well placed to reject something if it doesn't match your expectations.

In other words: Johnson went for the sort of Brexit he thought he could get away with.

Sell Northern Ireland down the river, so as to appease the ERGers in the Tory Party?

Sure, do it if it's electorally expedient.

But then, when talking to NI businesses, he straight up lied on in reply to the question of export declarations - they will not be needed, he said, despite everyone else pointing out they would be needed.

He told the people he was talking to what they wanted to hear, right then.

Meanwhile the Tories were playing a similarly double game with the Withdrawal Agreement and the NI Protocol.

Johnson signed the thing, while at the same time Gove was telling Baker and the ERGers that it could be changed after signature: https://twitter.com/JenniferMerode/status/1264484502451228672

Yesterday's news from @pmdfoster is that one coming home to roost. It can't.
https://spark.ft.com/editor/4874ae7f-42cb-4a51-b255-25c7e3035628?edit=true

So - in short - any categoric assessment that Johnson wants this or does not want that (things like this piece from @Mij_Europe for example https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/07/boris-johnson-deal-eu-britain-talks ) are not right - Johnson might have some preferences in this, but where he wants all this to end up is unclear.

Related to that is the complexity of assessing whether anything the UK does makes tactical sense.

The incendiary aspects of the internal market bill are a case in point - I would highly doubt if Johnson himself had judged what should or should not be in there.

Johnson indeed might even vaguely remember that he said there would be no customs declarations. But also vaguely thinks that a country ought to respect his commitments (roughly as he said a husband ought to respect his commitments - to the wives he has had).

He is perfectly capable of holding contradictory views in his mind simultaneously, not seeing the contradiction, and flitting between the two variants at will.

And in the meantime mostly seeking to keep the person he's speaking to at that moment happy.

So how do you assess what is going on?

First, there is no outright decision on Deal or No Deal in Number 10 - they genuinely don't know, because they do not know what they want, let alone what they can get.

Second, communication aspects are at least as important as the actual outcome - a sub-optimal outcome that's easier to blame on someone else might win out over the optimum outcome.

Third, there's a sort of rough balance sheet with the pros and cons of each option in the heads of each of the players in this on the UK side, but they do not all have the *same* balance sheet in their heads.

Fourth, there is no robust decision making process within Number 10 to actually get clarity on this - because Frost, Gove and Cummings are happy for the PM to faff around as that gives them more power.

Fifth, expect all of this to oscillate wildly between Deal and No Deal rhetoric for the next couple of months - until the deadline is so damned hard they cannot avoid it. And that's some way off still.

Above all, do not look for clarity where there is none.

Do not look for decisions having been taken when they have not been.

Definitely do not assume consistency, decency or competence from Number 10 - they've adequately demonstrated this is sorely lacking.

/ends