Brexit process

[UndercoverElephant]

And so the fog begins to clear and the reality starts to emerge.

Michael Gove:

The British people will be in control. If the British people dislike the agreement that we have negotiated with the EU, the agreement will allow a future government to diverge. After a transition period, the UK will have full freedom to diverge from EU law on the single market and customs union�.

In plain English: "We had our fingers crossed behind our backs, the agreement means nothing, it was just something we had to say to get the EU to move on to trade talks. It isn't worth the paper it is written on."

And to be fair, the EU's dictated sequencing of talks was always stupid, because if there's a caveat "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" then the sequence is actually irrelevant.

"Senior EU official":

member states could be ready by February or March to have substantive talks but only if May had got to grips with her cabinet and agreed a settled position.

In plain English: "we are the bullyboys here, you are supposed to have no power. But you have been negotiating with a gun pointed at your head by brexiteers in your own cabinet, and using your own weakness to leverage concessions from us, by threatening that if we don't then we'll end up talking to Johnson, Gove or Rees-Mogg instead of you (oh shit!). This is intolerable. We only negotiate when we hold all the cards. Therefore even though we just agreed to move on to trade talks, there will be no actual trade talks until you've got your cabinet united behind you and can no longer threaten us with the disorderly hard brexit the Germans are terrified of."

Which is, of course, completely impossible this side of another general election which returns a decent tory majority.

[UndercoverElephant]

He would probably go well with the Trump.

He is quite different to Trump, but clearly is in the Thatcher tradition.

At least he appears to understand logic. He does not try to to hide unsolvable problems under ambiguous language, because he doesn't want to look stupid.

[fuzzy]

JW is on great form today:

https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2017/12/10 ... by-vermin/

[kenneal - lagger]

JW is on great form today:

https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2017/12/10 ... by-vermin/

Liked that so much that I've shared it on Facebook. Now awaiting the wrath!!

[johnhemming2]

Just because someone disagrees does not make them "vermin". I haven't bothered to read the article because of the headline.

[UndercoverElephant]

Looks to me like these negotiations are now in total deadlock, with no way out. The EU insisted on the phased negotiations precisely because they didn't want the UK to have any powerful cards to play in phase II. They didn't want to allow the UK to be able to use threats about the Irish border or non-payment of "divorce bill" in order to get anything out of them during the trade talks. But last Monday they blinked, and it became clear that actually the EU is scared of a disorderly hard brexit. Barnier and Juncker came under pressure from Berlin and Paris to get a deal signed, and they caved into agreeing to an agreement which is a self-contradictory fudge, totally undermined by clause 5 - "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."

Now the UK's chief negotiator has said "The phase I agreement is just a statement of intent, has no legal status, and if we don't get what we want in a trade deal then we can simply tear it up." The EU and Ireland are now beginning to respond by saying "We will hold the UK to the phase I agreement, come what may" as well as "There will be no trade talks until the UK government has an agreed objective."

That is a recipe for a giant impasse. If the UK maintains the position that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and the EU maintains that the phase I agreement must be honoured for trade talks to occur, then there is nowhere for the negotiating process to go. Just a clock ticking, as it was before, except now we know that the EU is desperate to avoid a no-deal scenario.

This actually puts the UK in a strong position, but only if we demonstrate that we are willing to walk away with no deal. For those of you who have not yet accepted that last sentence, surely now you must do so. What is needed now is backbone. Every person who says "But a no deal hard brexit is an apocalyptic outcome that must be avoided at all costs" is helping to turn a winning position where we hold the whip hand over the EU and can eventually get a decent outcome into a losing position where the EU has the UK over a barrel and will screw us over bigtime.

[kenneal - lagger]

.........a losing position where the EU has the UK over a barrel and will screw us over bigtime.

Trouble is that is just what a lot of Remoaners want so that they can urge another referendum and get a big vote against leaving.

[clv101]

This actually puts the UK in a strong position, but only if we demonstrate that we are willing to walk away with no deal. For those of you who have not yet accepted that last sentence, surely now you must do so. What is needed now is backbone. Every person who says "But a no deal hard brexit is an apocalyptic outcome that must be avoided at all costs" is helping to turn a winning position where we hold the whip hand over the EU and can eventually get a decent outcome into a losing position where the EU has the UK over a barrel and will screw us over bigtime.

You used to be a fan of 'reality'. Suggesting we are willing to walk away with no deal is a nonsense. No British government will ever do that. Pretending we are willing to walk away is not having a backbone, it's pointless hyperbole.

[UndercoverElephant]

This actually puts the UK in a strong position, but only if we demonstrate that we are willing to walk away with no deal. For those of you who have not yet accepted that last sentence, surely now you must do so. What is needed now is backbone. Every person who says "But a no deal hard brexit is an apocalyptic outcome that must be avoided at all costs" is helping to turn a winning position where we hold the whip hand over the EU and can eventually get a decent outcome into a losing position where the EU has the UK over a barrel and will screw us over bigtime.

You used to be a fan of 'reality'. Suggesting we are willing to walk away with no deal is a nonsense.

NO IT IS NOT! The EU has been totally unco-operative for months, and then miraculously caved in the moment it believed that Theresa May might lose her job and be replaced by a hard brexiteer willing to walk away with no deal. The "reality" is that if we follow your advice, WE ARE f***ed, and if we follow mine, WE ARE NOT f***ed. Sorry for capitals, but I cannot understand why you don't understand this.

No British government will ever do that.

Oh yes it would. You think if Michael Gove was calling the shots that a hard brexit would be off the table??

Pretending we are willing to walk away is not having a backbone, it's pointless hyperbole.

No it is not. You simply don't get it. I am not "pretending". I am not suggesting we pretend to be willing to walk away. We have to actually be prepared to do it. The moment the EU understands that we are prepared to do so, they will start negotiating seriously. So long as people like you continue to say "But we'd never do that, so why pretend?", the EU HOLDS ALL THE F**KING CARDS.

Jesus wept.

Chris...you are a very intelligent man, but you really do not have the first clue about how these negotiations are working. If the EU truly believes that the UK will do anything to get a deal, then it is abundantly clear that the UK will be offered an unimaginably awful deal, and if we follow your advice then we will make no preparations for any "plan B". The strategy you are advising we follow can only lead the UK towards total catastrophe. But we now know - because it was revealed last week when it looked like the process would fall apart and TM lose her job - that the EU IS BLUFFING. They have seriously overplayed their hand, the UK has seriously underplayed ours, and you are advocating that we continue to do so!!!! The only way the UK can come out of this process with a fair deal is to call the EU's bluff, and there is now no reason not to because we know it is a bluff. We know that they will cave in if it looks like the UK is going for a hard brexit (either intentionally or because we have no choice because of internal divisions).

[johnhemming2]

I am not myself clear on how the EU "caved in". They argued that there were three things that needed resolving and those three things were resolved.

[UndercoverElephant]

I am not myself clear on how the EU "caved in". They argued that there were three things that needed resolving and those three things were resolved.

No they weren't. The final text is a mess of contradictions, and the 5th paragraph "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" undermines everything else in the document. David Davis went on TV yesterday and declared that the entire "agreement" was no more than a "statement of intent", that we'll pay nothing if we don't like the trade deal we are offered and that the Irish border problem hasn't actually been solved.

The EU has been playing hardball since day one, but last week it looked for a while that they'd backed Theresa May into such an impossible corner that her government might fall. "Sources" are now saying that what happened in the background was that Berlin and Paris instructed Juncker and Barnier to make sure a deal got done, and the result was a text that could mean multiple contradictory things. The UK has got over the line at the end of Phase I without a firm agreement on any of the three phase I issues. We can still walk away without a deal and we are not legally obliged to pay the EU a penny. Neither are we obliged to come up with a solution to the Irish border problem, not least because it is actually the EU that needs that border there, not the UK. The EU is worried about its own external border, and yet it has tried to make this entirely the UK's problem.

[kenneal - lagger]

If we are to control immigration we need a border somewhere around the island of Ireland. And we would only need a customs post if we wished to levy a tariff on imports from the EU.

[clv101]

We have to actually be prepared to do it. The moment the EU understands that we are prepared to do so, they will start negotiating seriously.

The point is that talk of walking away without a deal is pretending, I know it, Brussels know it, and you should you know it.

You might as well say we seriously threaten to nuke Brussels if we don't get a good deal. We have to actually be prepared to do it. The moment the EU understands that we are prepared to do so, they will start negotiating seriously.

It's a nonsense. If you can't see that there's not much further our discussion on this can go!

[johnhemming2]

No they weren't.

The nub of the agreement is that it accepts that any final agreement will be in accordance with the interim agreements.

The idea that we can have "no deal" is not practical at any level.

[UndercoverElephant]

We have to actually be prepared to do it. The moment the EU understands that we are prepared to do so, they will start negotiating seriously.

The point is that talk of walking away without a deal is pretending, I know it, Brussels know it, and you should you know it.

I think you have been fooled. I do not understand why walking away with no deal is so impossible.

Why?