Imagine a situation when you are in the process of buying a new home. You are pretty confident that it is all going through when, out of nowhere you get a call from your surveyor. He is concerned that initial understanding that the house had passed all NIEIC (electrical) standards was not backed by evidence. In fact, any previous mention of it had been removed.

You may go on impulse and hope for the best, but the chances are that you will halt proceedings. Rattled, you would then either pull out of the deal or at least allow yourself breathing space to make further investigations to the state of the property.

That is what Sir Kier Starmer did on Saturday. He discovered anomalies in Johnson’s fantastic Brexit deal that he felt were worthy of scrutiny. These were standards that were in Theresa May’s deal but had been removed or had the wording changed in Johnson’s deal.

Alterations to May’s Deal

Starmer’s concerns were that considering the regulations were a base requirement in place to either adhere to or improve , why was there a need to remove them? Starmer’s conclusion was that you would only remove them if you wanted the flexibility to reduce them.

The opposition were not happy about this finding. Why not? Surely if it was an error or there was good reason to deregulate these standards, it would be easy to explain? No explanation came and as the Letwin amendment got through, all we got was waffle and childlike petulance from those selling the deal.

So, imagine going back to the person selling you a house and getting bombarded with waffle and petulance from a seller acting like a spoilt kid? You tell him where to stick his house and rightly so. He tried to sell you a pup and your surveyor caught him out.

Devil in the Detail

The widely held belief now is that the devil in the detail of this fantastic Brexit deal was going to get missed whilst everyone concentrated on the content regarding key issues with Northern Ireland and the DUP potentially trashing the deal (which they did). Johnson tried to thrash this through in two days because it is a con. If it wasn’t a con, they wouldn’t care if it had to be fully scrutinised.

Brexiteers also wouldn’t be sulking about John Bercow simply applying sovereign law (you know, the sovereign law we supposedly have lost) to block another vote on something that has already been rejected in the same sitting. If they took a few seconds to stop crying like babies they might see that by blocking it, it gives them more time to cajole Labour rebels into voting for it.

Maybe they know that the more time passes, the more MP’s will understand the devil in the details and the fence sitters will land on the side voting it down with a larger margin? What Johnson does seem to have on his side is an opposition leader who is not leading with any authority. It is likely Johnson will crush Corbyn in an election.

If Starmer was the leader of the opposition, Johnson’s bullshit and bluster might well turn into outright panic. I know plenty of people who would throw their allegiance behind him as they believe him and see sincerity in his character.

Maybe that will come later. For now, there is every chance there will be an election with Johnson winning it with 35% of the vote. The consolation is that when his bullshit and bluster comes back to haunt him, he will be a dead man walking.

Of course, this is just an amateur assessment and the goalposts may move again tomorrow, another key day with regards to how this will all end up.