The escalating delinquency of Boris Johnson and his gang of blue anarchists

For people who present themselves as super-patriots, Boris Johnson and his coterie at Number 10 have a craze for despoiling everything that the world once regarded as the best of British. The independence of the judiciary, the success of the BBC, the impartiality of the civil service and the authority of parliament - all have been bricked and bottled by the blue anarchists. When the Tory leader tried his prorogation stunt last autumn, he was even prepared to taint the position of the Queen by giving her illegal advice. Now their delinquency has escalated to explicitly tearing up the rule of law. That foundation stone of British democracy and lodestar of our country’s international reputation, the principle that once had no more passionate champion than the Conservative party, is no longer safe from them.

It was an extraordinary moment when a member of the cabinet stood before parliament to declare that the government plans to intentionally break international law by unilaterally rewriting sections of the withdrawal agreement with the EU. Number 10 then confirmed that Mr Johnson was ready to violate a treaty that he negotiated less than a year ago, made the centrepiece of his pitch to the British people at the election last December, and then had the Commons rapidly ratify in January. The agreement he once flourished as a “wonderful” triumph for his personal diplomacy is now described by Number 10 as a rushed botch that the prime minister never liked. Breaching of a treaty that he himself signed and advocated sets a fresh standard of brazenness.

The anger of European leaders has not surprised Number 10. Some there, those who think spitting in someone’s face is an effective form of diplomacy, report that it was a deliberately incendiary act.

A regime with an unveiled contempt for both officials and conventions probably shrugged at the resignation of Sir Jonathan Jones as the head of the government’s legal department. Nor do they seem bothered that they have hideously compromised the offices of the attorney general and the lord chancellor who have both sworn solemn oaths to uphold the law. Theresa May and Sir John Major are among the senior Tories shocked to find that an allegedly Conservative government wants to turn Britain into a treaty-breaking renegade state. Sir John warns: “If we lose our reputation for honouring the promises we make, we will have lost something without price.” Grave reprimands from two of his predecessors would have troubled previous prime ministers, but not this one. My word is my bond is not a motto by which Boris Johnson has ever lived his life.

What may disturb him, at least a bit, is the vehemence of the reaction from some on the right of his party. No one has excoriated him as fiercely as Michael Howard, a veteran Eurosceptic. That former Tory leader makes the excellent point that the “severe damage” done to Britain’s moral authority will make it harder to criticise international law-breaking by the likes of China, Russia and Iran. Norman Lamont, the former Tory chancellor and one of the first prophets of Brexit, weighed in to say that the government had got itself into a “terrible mess”. Even the zealots at Number 10 may have a tremor of self-doubt when they are losing Tory elders as Brexity as Lords Howard and Lamont.

The trigger for this simultaneous descent towards rogue nation status and lurch to the brink of a crash-out Brexit was the deadlock in the talks with the EU. It is no surprise that they have proved much more difficult than the Brexiters sought to pretend during the referendum campaign, when the negotiation was going be a “piece of cake”, and again in the run up to the December election, when Mr Johnson promised that his “oven-ready deal” would secure “a fantastic new trade agreement with the EU”. As some of us remarked at the time, “Get Brexit Done” was both the most effective slogan of the Tories’ election campaign and the most mendacious.

What was harder to anticipate is that the negotiations have got into most serious difficulty over the issue of business subsidies. In return for continuing access to its single market, the EU wants the UK to comply with restrictions on state aid to prevent companies this side of the Channel gaining an unfair advantage. These competition rules flowed from the creation of the single market that was driven by Margaret Thatcher. If the Iron Lady were still with us, she would be melting in horror that a government that calls itself Conservative is fighting to the brink for the right to use market-distorting subsidies. And imagine her bewilderment at discovering that a French politician is leading the other side of the argument. The main reason this has become such a contentious issue is Dominic Cummings. Many excellent sources report that the prime minister’s chief adviser has an obsessive ambition to direct large amounts of government aid in support of tech ventures. Sensible Tories boggle that their government would trash Britain’s reputation as a trustworthy international partner, wreck our trade and security relations with our closest neighbours and risk the prospects of many existing British businesses so that Number 10’s self-appointed genius can fantasise that he is a cross between Elon Musk, Sergey Brin and Masayoshi Son while splashing taxpayers’ money at any “moonshot” idea that launches off the top of his head. This is a most surreal place for the Conservative party to have got to.

A growing band of Tories can see this. Revulsion with international law-breaking has combined with the many discontents about the handling of the coronavirus crisis to add to the febrility among Conservative MPs. When I put in a call to one senior Tory, our conversation began with him asking: “Covid or Brexit? Which shitshow do you want to talk about?”

Among those Tories who still believe that the rule of law matters, a rebellion is gathering weight. Even if the prime minister gets his way in the Commons, his scheme will be ripped apart in the Lords, where there are many peers who take issues of constitutionality very seriously. There is no sign of the EU flinching in the face of blustery Johnsonian brinkmanship with which they are now highly familiar. Rather, their unity has hardened around the threat of trade and financial sanctions if he doesn’t back down by the end of the month.

It is characteristic of the tight and self-admiring bubble at Number 10 that they embarked down this dangerous road without considering how other powerful political forces might react. They particularly neglected to consider that the Irish American caucus in Washington would respond angrily to illegal meddling with the special protocols on Northern Ireland. On both sides of the aisle, congressmen and women are lambasting the Johnson government’s latest manoeuvre as a risk to the Good Friday agreement. If they are hostile to Britain, there is no prospect of securing a trade agreement with the US, which the Brexiters have always held out as one of the great prizes of their enterprise.

There are plenty of skilled diplomats and civil servants working for the British government with the connections and expertise to have spotted how badly this reckless gambit would backfire, but the behaviour of Number 10 deters them from offering candid advice. As one senior Tory puts it: “The climate of fear in Whitehall that they (Johnson and Cummings) have created means that officials do not rush to warn them when they are about to make a mistake.”

Continuing down this road will also increase the threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom and make it that much more conceivable that history records Boris Johnson as the prime minister who lost Scotland. The Nationalists have already prospered mightily from Scottish resentment that they are being forced into a Brexit the majority of them opposed by a Tory government that an even larger majority didn’t want. A disaster Brexit occurring in the months immediately leading up to next spring’s election to the Holyrood parliament will be all their Hogmanays at once for the SNP. That would surely guarantee them a thumping victory that they would then exploit to claim an irresistible mandate for another referendum on independence. In the words of a Conservative who once held a very senior position in the cabinet: “A no-deal Brexit will put rocket-boosters under Nicola Sturgeon. What is a Tory government doing putting the United Kingdom at so much risk?”

What indeed? Perhaps that senior Tory asks the wrong question about a government that vandalises so many of the principles and institutions that Conservatives once cherished. Of a regime that violates international law and jeopardises the union, Tories should really be asking themselves: is this a Conservative government at all?

• Andrew Rawnsley is Chief Political Commentator of the Observer