If Boris Johnson wants a “liberal” Brexit, why are all of his ideas anything but?

If no plan survives contact with the enemy, none of Boris Johnson’s schemes survives contact with reality. This stretches back to the early days of Brexit negotiations, when Boris Johnson was one of the members of the Cabinet who most wanted to have their cake and it too. It all started with the infamous NHS bus and his “red lines” overshadowing Tory conference.

Since then, he’s had a consistently eye-catching, headline-grabbing relationship with our relationship with the EU. Now, he's giving a Valentine’s Day speech advocating a “liberal Brexit.”

Boris’ latest plan first came about following a tense meeting of the Cabinet. One ally of the Foreign Secretary said that he wants to celebrate Brexit as a “beautiful moment of democracy.”

A noble idea, and a liberal one at that, but not a realistic one. One of the cornerstones of the Brexit campaign was the fantasy of “taking back control”—of everything from immigration, to law-making and fisheries.

That means English judges ruling on issues that pertain to English law, rather than the ever-looming bogeyman of the judges of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

But when these things actually happen—when English judges rule on a case relating to Brexit—or MPs vote against a certain version of a Brexit Bill, they’re branded “Enemies of the People,” or mutineers. This gives the dangerous impression that democracy can only be liberal when it serves the purpose that a small number of individuals want it to; something much closer to oligarchy than liberalism.

Of course, there was also Boris’ idea for a bridge across the Channel. The problem with the bridge is that it feels like another one of the Foreign Secretary’s headline grabbing schemes; something that reveals itself to be unachievable the closer it comes to reality. (Since the policy came and went in, well, precisely the amount of time required to make headlines, it’s difficult to tell if the bridge was meant to be a metaphor not.)

Commendable as this sort of connection with an ally might be in theory, Johnson’s views on Brexit means that his bridge wouldn’t work in the real world. Commendable, and maybe even desirable in theory, but unwieldly to the point of impossibility in reality, it feels more like the bridge to Hawaii in BoJack Horseman; another idea that’s good in the papers, but bad in the real world.

The idea of the bridge was to improve transport links between Britain and France, to bring us closer to our nearest economic and strategic neighbours. This is, in theory, a sensible idea, even if it feels like something of an architectural challenge. The need for a bridge like this seems ridiculous, given it serves the exact same purpose as the European Union did. If anything, Boris’ bridge, and “liberal Brexit,” just sound like continued membership in the EU.

Even if Boris was able to get his bridge and drive to France to sell British goods, he’d still have to stop for the customs check. And the more time spent analysing this idea of a liberal Brexit, the more of an impossibility it becomes. The biggest obstacle is, of course, the reality of the Leave vote itself.

A vote to Leave was about things like “taking back control” of laws and borders, but a liberal Brexit would still want a high number of migrant workers; not only is free movement itself a liberal principle, but immigration boosts the economy.

This is about more than just a “positive” vision of Brexit, and more than just prefixing it with “liberal,” it is about understanding what will change once Britain leaves the EU, the liberal principles that we’ll lose touch with, and the changes that will come upon our legislation, our population, and economy.

There’s been talk that news of Boris’ liberal Brexit speech came after aggravation from some in the Tory party about the idea of staying “inside a form of customs union.” Despite being billed as an olive branch to liberal, Remain voting Tories, the reality of the situation is different. For all of this talk of liberalism, Boris’ Brexit means taking a step back on the world stage, and retreating into ourselves.