The EU needs to be resolute in the face of Johnson’s latest Brexit gamble

FEW are quite sure where the phrase ‘ Perfidious Albion’ originates. Some historians believe it dates back as far as the 1300s but the general consensus seems to be that it entered more common usage after the British reneged on the Treaty of Limerick in 1691. Its origins are unclear but the phrase – shorthand for Britain’s diplomatic duplicity and occasionally outright treachery – has been around for a very long time.

Use of the phrase has become much less common in recent years but Boris Johnson, a man who views Britain’s imperial record with a religious reverence, looks determined to bring it back.

In tearing up the Brexit deal, Johnson and his Machiavellian advisor Dominic Cummings have taken an extraordinary gamble but a key question remains unanswered. Why?

The Brexiteers have always been happy, proud even, to tear down institutions and rip up relationships but breaking an international treaty, one signed just months ago, seems a step too far even for them.

Some commentators – Tories and Brexit backers primarily – are of the opinion that the move is a brilliant gambit aimed at exploiting European divisions to win a better deal than the one agreed last October after months of torturous negotiations.

Britain’s latest move is certainly a gambit but in reality it appears far more desperate than daring. The last throw of a dice by a gambler that knows his debts are about to be called in.

Despite all their bluster, Johnson and his Brexiteer cabal know well that Brexit is likely to be a disaster for Britain and when the time comes, and it will come, they will get the blame for the economic Armageddon that is coming down the tracks.

Quite simply, the EU, as the far larger negotiating partner in the talks, holds the best cards and Britain is highly unlikely to get the trade deal it craves.

In that context – a purely political one – a ‘no deal’ Brexit makes a degree of sense. Britain will still suffer but the catastrophe can be framed as the work of an overreaching EU trying to exert its power and punish the UK for daring to stand up to it.

In the context of the juvenile jingoism that has swept Britain in recent years, it is a strategy that could work and one that could save Johnson and the Tories’ political neck.

The language used in Britain’s recent statements on Brexit would tend to support the theory.

Leading Tory Brexiteers, such as Michael Gove have claimed that their new bill is being crafted to protect the future integrity of the UK from EU machinations aimed at shattering the Union and severing Northern Ireland from the UK.

Quite why the EU would want to do that, or how it could, is left deliberately vague. The fact that Brexit itself has done more to endanger the UK – Scotland looks more likely to leave with every passing day – makes such claims feel even more preposterous.

What the British will do next is remarkably difficult to predict. As Churchill once said of Russia, Downing Street’s foreign policy is now “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”.

Like Churchill’s Britain, the EU must now remain resolute.