Not even his most generous friends would describe Brandon Lewis as particularly bright. He is one of parliament’s natural plodders. A born follower. A man who has unexpectedly found himself in the cabinet both by virtue of his more talented colleagues having disqualified themselves for being awkward and having no principles of his own he could possibly compromise. But there seemed little harm in Boris Johnson promoting Brandon to Northern Ireland secretary once the Brexit withdrawal agreement and Northern Ireland protocol had been agreed in parliament last year, as there was little potential for him to screw up too badly. That, though, was before the prime minister had, at the weekend, unilaterally declared that there were some bits of the Northern Ireland protocol he was unhappy with and planned to backtrack on. Which left Lewis with one of the more difficult and embarrassing hours as a minister as he struggled to answer an urgent question on the latest U-turn. By the end both he and the government were in tatters. It was something of an open goal for Louise Haigh, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, but she gratefully accepted the opportunity with some style. Labour wanted Brexit to proceed on the terms the government had promised with the protocol intact. And given that the government’s chief legal adviser had resigned earlier that morning – civil servants have scruples about law-breaking even if politicians don’t – it rather looked as if Boris was planning to renege on his own treaty. One that he had drawn up himself, forced through parliament in under three days and on which he had successfully fought a general election last December. Now it appeared that the government had had second thoughts. That its treaty hadn’t been an “oven-ready” deal after all and that it was planning to breach the ministerial code by breaking the law. Haigh even ended by quoting Margaret Thatcher, every Conservative MP’s patron saint of conservatism. The UK did not renounce international treaties. Beads of sweat began to appear on Lewis’s forehead. He could sense he was in trouble, he just didn’t know exactly how much, as he was far too insignificant to have been included in any of the decision-making. All he had been given was a one-paragraph brief telling him just to bluff it out as best he could for the duration of the urgent question. So he began to say any old nonsense that came into his head. Yes, Boris had had a bit of a brain freeze when he had negotiated the withdrawal agreement and it was a bit shit but everyone was entitled to a bit of an off-day. The Brexit deal had never made complete sense so it was only right that the Boris should try to tie up a few loose ends by ignoring something that had been agreed both by the UK and the EU. But people shouldn’t be too quick to pre-judge the situation. Just wait until Wednesday when the government published its new get-out-of-jail internal market bill and see if the EU was still complaining then. Clue: it would be. As would almost everyone else. What followed was a near-universal pile on from both sides of the house, with only Iain Duncan Smith, John Redwood and Steve Baker rushing to Lewis’s defence. The kind of support Lewis could have done without as all three seemed to imply that Boris had promised them last year that he would renege on the Northern Ireland protocol, which was the only reason they had voted for it in the first place. Besides, it was vital that the UK could continue to offer state aid to tech companies, such as the one that had delivered the “world-beating” test and trace coronavirus app. By the end Lewis was all but begging them to shut up.
Theresa May was first to go on the attack. The UK had signed the protocol and it was our duty to abide by it. What would be the consequences for any other international treaties if the UK could not be trusted to keep its word? We would be no better than any of the other failed, rogue states the UK was always so quick to deplore for doing the same thing. Tory Simon Hoare made much the same point, as did a host of opposition MPs. Labour’s Hilary Benn wondered how the customs paperwork would operate under the proposed new regime. Lewis clearly didn’t have a clue. By just throwing it in the bin, he shrugged? Eventually Brandon cracked. Asked yet again, this time by Tory Bob Neill, if the government was planning to break international law, Lewis made the schoolboy error of giving an almost honest response. Yes, of course we would be breaking the law, he snapped. But we would only be doing it in a little way and not so much that anyone would notice. It would be no worse than doing a little, gentle recreational shoplifting after school. All shops priced in a bit of pilfering to their balance sheet so there would be no harm done. It wasn’t as if we were planning to nuke Brussels. Though Boris might like to keep that option on the table. With this the floodgates opened. It was normal for ministers to lie at the dispatch box. MPs expected nothing else. So if Lewis had actually told a half-truth, then the reality must be even worse than they had thought. Was all this actually just a ploy to piss off the EU so much that we ended up saying sod the Good Friday agreement and having a no-deal Brexit? Lewis opened and closed his mouth, but no words came out.