How does Boris Johnson get away so easily with being untruthful? That is a question that deserves a book-length answer, but one point to make this morning is that he manages it partly because so much of his discourse operates in some ambiguous grey zone between the serious and the absurd. There was a good example last night when he said that the chances of a no-deal Brexit are “a million-to-one against”. That is so ridiculous that it cannot possibly be taken as a literal assessment. (The odds on an asteroid hitting the earth are much lower, many experts believe a no-deal Brexit is actually more likely than not, and if Johnson really thought the chances of no-deal were so small, he could not justify spending money on no-deal planning.) But most Tories watching last night’s hustings will have known perfectly well that Johnson was not being literal; they will have taken him as meaning that the chances of no-deal are lower than is generally assumed, which is probably something Johnson genuinely believes.
Just to remind him how disastrous a no-deal Brexit could be, the Japanese foreign minister, Taro Kono, was on the Today programme today talking about it, and he said it could threaten the future of Japanese car plants in the UK. It is fair to assume he was not exaggerating for comic effect. He said:
There are over 1,000 Japanese companies operating in the United Kingdom, so we are very concerned with this no-deal Brexit. That would have a very negative impact on their operations …
There are a few Japanese auto manufacturers operating in the United Kingdom, and some parts are coming from continental Europe. Right now they have a very smooth operation; their stock for each part is only for a few hours.
But if there is a no-deal Brexit, and if they have to go through actual customs inspections physically, those operations may not be able to continue. And many companies are worried about the implications, because they do not know what is going to happen. They don’t know what happens legally or physically. So some companies have already started moving their operations to other places in Europe.
We do not want to disrupt the economic relationship with the UK. So we’ve been asking the UK government: let the Japanese companies know what they can expect and things should happen smoothly without any disruption.
Whenever we have had meetings [with the UK government] that was the issue – please no no-deal Brexit.
Kono also said that he hopes whoever won the Tory leadership contest would take account of Japanese concerns about a no-deal Brexit.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Steve Barclay, the Brexit secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 10.30am: Mel Stride, the leader of the Commons, makes a statement about next week’s Commons business.
11am: The Tory MP Crispin Blunt speaks at the launch of the new Conservative Drugs Policy Reform Group
7pm: Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt take part in Tory leadership hustings in Bournemouth.
And Theresa May is in Japan for the G20 summit.
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web, although I will be focusing mostly on the Tory leadership contest. I plan to publish a summary at lunchtime and then another late afternoon. And then after that I will be here to cover the Tory leadership hustings.
You can read all the latest Guardian politics articles here. Here is the Politico Europe roundup of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.
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