And some of his media and opponent alleged lies are arguably not lies, just his version of the truth, eg there will be no Customs checks in the Irish Sea. As I understand it, there will definitely not be any EU forced checks on goods coming to the UK across the Irish Sea. And going the other way, the withdrawal agreement says there MAY be checks in certain circumstances. However, this is is not absolute and is to be negotiated as part of the future trading relationship. Clearly, he does not want this and will negotiate hard to avoid it. So does that make it a lie for him to say, in his view, there will be none?
Article 5(1) of the Withdrawal Agreement states:
No customs duties shall be payable for a good brought into Northern Ireland from another part of the United Kingdom by direct transport, notwithstanding paragraph 3, unless that good is at risk of subsequently being moved into the Union, whether by itself or forming part of another good following processing.
Article 5(2) of the Withdrawal Agreement states:
- For the purposes of the first and second subparagraph of paragraph 1, a good brought into Northern Ireland from outside the Union shall be considered to be at risk of subsequently being moved into the Union unless it is established that that good:
(a) will not be subject to commercial processing in Northern Ireland; and
(b) fulfils the criteria established by the Joint Committee in accordance with the fourth subparagraph of this paragraph.
So to suggest there will be no checks on good entering NI from GB under this agreement is not true because there needs to be a mechanism for establishing that the good complies with subparagraph (a) or (b). Now there may well be a fairly loose criteria established by the joint committee under (b) however by definition that mechanism will need to be some form of declaration and there will also need to be a system of ensuring that that mechanism isn't being abused which will be.....drum roll please.....a form of physical check.
Now, Johnson said that under his agreement there will be no checks between GB and NI. Is that what the agreement says? No. Does that make it a lie? It probably makes it an exercise in semantics, like the one he did when he was challenged about his statements on a certain bus. I am happy to shorten that to the word lie. You might not be, but in the end I will bet you a signed fiver that checks will happen.
As for 50,000 more nurses, 20,000 of which are already nurses already working in the NHS. Another bit of sleight of hand because they count nurses that might leave without policy action, but do not count the number of nurses that might join without policy action. An incredibly creative and disingenuous use of the figures, which again I am happy to characterise as a lie.
This is only two examples of Johnson's penchant for policy sleight of hand - actually lets just call them big fat whoopers. I am no snowflake, but I can read. I don't care about his jolly japes (which have evaporated haven't they?), I do care about not having the wool pulled over my eyes. For many this election is about choosing which flavour of dog **** sandwich you want to eat, this is one of the reasons why.