Here's Fraser Nelson with some ideas on how come its possible:
"Of all the tall stories that Boris Johnson has told, his latest –
about how he’ll secure a Brexit deal by Hallowe’en – is seen as the most laughable. There is a million-to-one chance of his failing to negotiate a Brexit deal, he says. Most Tories think it’s the other way around, that he stands a million-to-one chance of success. They back him because they think he’d leave without a deal if he had to. But the mood music in Europe is changing and there’s a decent chance of a breakthrough – for a Prime Minister sharp enough to take it.
The EU still likes to say the deal it offered to Theresa May cannot be “reopened” but this is a bit of a verbal trick. No one is seriously expecting a new 585-page deal to be negotiated. If a few sentences were added to the end, giving either side the ability to walk away – in the way EU members and Nato members can walk away – then Parliament would probably vote it through. The Northern Irish backstop is a problem, but alternatives are there. Agreement is tantalisingly close.
Meanwhile, the cost of not doing a deal is becoming clearer. Leo Varadkar, the Irish Taoiseach, had been saying that no-deal – however painful – would be better than more compromise with the Brits. But this week his finance minister spelt out what no-deal would mean for Ireland: three years of pain, 85,000 job losses, economic growth crushed and billions of euros in extra borrowing. Why go through all this if it could be avoided, by a bit of goodwill?
Crucially a new argument against no-deal is coming from Berlin. Forget the economic cost, it says: something far more important is at stake. The
trade war between America and China is turning into a wider cold war, placing Europe under pressure from both sides. Europe can resist this pressure, but it needs scale. And Britain. With a Brexit deal, the EU and UK would be close and could act as a diplomatic block – deciding together, for example, what to do about Huawei’s 5G services or other suspiciously lucrative Chinese contracts. In short, how to fight the trade-and-tech wars.
The Germans worry that in a no-deal situation the UK would end up in American arms, becoming its 51st state – and leaving the rest of Europe to be picked off by China piece by piece. Italy recently signed a lucrative deal to join China’s massive Belt and Road transport project, seen by many as Beijing’s attempt to project global influence. The G20 summit,
which starts on Friday in Osaka, looks like a showdown between the 21st century’s two great global powers with Europeans looking on, struggling to be taken seriously. A Europe without Britain would struggle even more.
The original Brexit plan was for Britain to become the EU’s most powerful ally, to provide diplomatic heft whenever needed. “But that could go so easily wrong now,” one diplomat tells me. “The Germans are waking up to this too late. A no-deal Brexit would create an ocean of bad blood. People say it would not last, that the EU would offer a free trade deal or the Brits would sue for peace. But neither might happen. Things might never recover.”
So Germany is keen for a Brexit deal and is ready to help, but Boris would need to play ball. If he arrives in Brussels threatening to withhold the £39 billion, it will be over. The great British mistake has been to think that the EU responds to rational arguments about money. It is motivated by pride and the need not to lose face. Far better for Boris to deploy his perfect French in a summer charm offensive, visiting Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Claude Juncker in their villas if need be, begging them to help him keep a post-Brexit Europe together.
Of course they both loathe Boris – or, at least, give a good impression of doing so. No one doubted who Donald Tusk had in mind when he
spoke of Brexiteers deserving a “special place in hell”. But if Boris switches tone, he could easily surprise them – perhaps convince them to say he has become a different man in office. His request could be simple. A tweak to the backstop, to make sure Britain cannot be stuck for ever in what is supposed to be a temporary arrangement, and he’d swallow the rest of the deal. In Dublin he could give assurances on the Good Friday Agreement. In Brussels he could agree never to tax Peter Mandelson’s EU pension.
But most of all, Boris can make the case for European diplomatic heft. He did so as Foreign Secretary, promising foreign audiences that Britain would be a flying buttress to the European cathedral (an analogy that was often lost in his audience as it stumped translators – one expressed it as a “flying bucket”). A no-deal Brexit, he can say, could poison European relations at precisely the time the continent is trying to stand together. Britain could act as one with the EU on Russia, China, terrorism and more – perhaps even join the EU in standing up to America and against Google and Facebook. With a deal, such co-operation would be easy to do. Without one, far, far harder.
Perhaps the hardest part will be talking Varadkar down from the ledge. His fairly hardline position has been popular at home. But as the costs and disruption of a no-deal are clearer, the stronger the case for compromise will be.
With Iain Duncan Smith now chairing his campaign, Boris stands a decent chance of persuading his troops to give a little more ground. They would be open to persuasion, provided there’s no single market, no customs union and no EU membership after October 31. They’d also sooner depose him than compromise on any of the above.
The rise of Boris is, to many in Europe, a horror story. He is seen as the populist devil – so, if he wins, expectations won’t be hard to beat. An energetic charm offensive, asking for a tweaked deal and pleading for continental cohesion, is the last project that he’d be expected to embark upon. And that is precisely why it might work."
