Tuesday 19 September 2017

The strange world of Brexit continues to evolve.





Even after 14 months now, the political world of Brexit I find a very odd place.


Here in the UK we have a Cabinet busy arguing over what type of Brexit they want. On the other side of the channel, there is an agreed position that either Britain pay £100-odd billion and retain open borders (via Ireland) and indeed EU citizenship for everyone or else it is a hard Brexit.


Given the European demands, hard Brexit it is. No one in the country, bar the noisiest remainers, really wants to engage in the EU terms offered.


And yet the papers are full of cabinet splits and tittle-tattle, when really preparing for a WTO world and avoiding various cliff-edge issues like flight paths is really what the focus should be on.


Indeed, this would have been the best way to send a message to the EU that it needed to bargain. Instead we have the EU merrily laughing at the UK as the politicians and media lay into one another day after day. Michel Barnier must feel like Lewis Hamilton did on Sunday after all his rivals crashed into one another and out of the race after 30 seconds.


Nonetheless Teresa May is going to have her speech on Friday, no one yet knows the full content, but it appears to be another attempt to try and find away around the EU red lines, which the EU have shown absolutely zero sign of wanting to change.


Still, popcorn viewing, of sorts.

14 comments:

Nick Drew said...

we had better hope that our many weaknesses turn out to be a strength!

pass the popcorn - and that bottle of gin

Bill Quango MP said...

100% agree.
Despite the danger it would have been far better to give OUR red lines up front and await a response.
If the EU continued to disinterested, then all preparations for WTO should have gone ahead. With the very real threat made clear that this is the path we have chosen.

That boxes the Remain media into trying to argue for something that isn't on offer. unlike now, where it is portrayed as the government asking for something not on offer.
{Which it is. But only because of the situation they have fumbled in to}

Prepare for the worst. Hope for the best.
We have spent a year with half the country in denial that leaving will ever happen.

CityUnslicker said...

I have it on good authority that prep for a hard Brexit is well under way by the civial service.#

Not discussed openly because remainia media would go batshit crazy and denounce May as a Nazi Dictator hellbent on crucifying all Europeans one by one at the Tyburn.

Also, I find interesting is that it is leavers and remainers who are defined as unhinged. I was at an event the other day with a Norwegian lady and bunch of other Europeans, all happily decrying all English people as racist, saying we were expelling all of them from the country and how much they hated us all now. I politely pointed out that all present had an automatic indefinite right to remain and also a right o a UK passport if they wanted, so there was no change to their lifestyle in anyway. "huh, that is hardly the point"

Shrieking over-emotional reactions are not just a UK thing - its an emotional time for all.

Anonymous said...

"I have it on good authority that prep for a hard Brexit is well under way by the civil service.#"

Interesting........I wondered why they let John Redwood speak yesterday on the Today programme when for months we've heard nothing from him. As usual he cut through the flannel and told it like it is....all very straightforward with no EU fudge. Maybe the tread softly approach has been a way of slowly getting the remainiacs on board.

Jan

Electro-Kevin said...

Like popcorn viewing in a cinema with me a zombie in the horror movie on screen.

We are stuck halfway out of the catflap - the problem is our own 5th column in the civil service and the fact that most of our law, media, celebrity and political establishment are left wing and Remain.

This isn't just a rebellion against the EU. It is, more realistically, a rebellion against the British ruling class's version of the EU that they forced upon us.

They took over in the late '80s, the beardie weirdies we used to see on University Challenge 'Reading law' in the '70s are they. Emma Thompsons et al are 'they' too.

They cannot be shaken off. So I don't think this will turn out well.

What a bloody shame.

Electro-Kevin said...

I hope you're right, CU at 10.34

I think Remain have behaved disgracefully since the Art 50 letter. It should be clear that we must now pull together for the good of our country and not the EU.

Nick Drew said...

I am inclined to agree with "prep for a hard Brexit is well under way"

Have a read of this: http://www.politico.eu/article/why-we-lost-the-brexit-vote-former-uk-prime-minister-david-cameron/
not new, but indicates how much goes on that we don't see. Obviously, it's the tale of a cock-up from the author's perspective ..!

... but the point remains

the Civil Service is not (always) as shit as we are inclined to think

Traveller said...

Just spent a week in France and Spain with a mixed group of Europeans and North Americans. The Brexit conversations were sporadic in that a) it's no big deal to them and b) they can't understand why anyone would [appear to] walk away from a major market. But they readily agree it is our choice.

I just hope that someone knows what they are doing, because the rest of the world can't see it.

Graeme said...

Traveller - your experience is exactly the opposite of mine. Down in the South of France, the locals appeared to want to break free from Paris! And in any case, who is walking away from a major market? The market is still there but the terms of trading will/might be different, who knows?

K said...

@CU I've heard similar from Europeans too. In fact the BBC repeatedly features such people in articles:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39890716
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41053684

I don't understand why they are so opposed to applying for British citizenship and why some have been here for 15+ years and never applied. I think a lot of Europeans consider citizenship to be the same as nationality which is why their own countries have much stricter rules and they are reluctant to apply for other citizenships. But being a British citizen/subject/etc has long had a meaning separate from nationality.

I know this German girl who was crushed after the Brexit vote but when it was pointed out to her that she's been here for 10 years and can apply for citizenship she stopped caring about Brexit. It wasn't the leavers who got her scared and crying.

Electro-Kevin said...

Vince Cable ' the Brexit saboteur' should realise that he has a duty to support his country since the Art 50 letter was sent.

This is all going beyond politics now.

He is either on Britain's side in critical negotiations or he is on the EU's side - that goes for all Remainers.

Graeme said...

Rejoining on the previous terms is now out of the question

Anonymous said...

ND - that Korski piece makes me feel the man should be stripped of his party membership, preferably publicly, being paraded between ranks of constituency members to a single drumbeat.

The sheer gall of the man - his conclusions, his "where we went wrong" bit - the problem apparently lies in not fiddling the electorate sufficiently - in not extending the franchise to 16 year olds with zero life experience but 12 years of State indoctucation.

"Had we done so, we would have brought 1.2 million voters into the decision-making process, the vast majority of whom would have been pro-Remain."

Oh, and not extending it to Brits living abroad for over 15 years. They can't get free NHS treatment (the test is "ordinarily resident"), they don't pay UK taxes, but they should have UK votes!

Daniel Korski, Mats Persson, Ameet Gill - Cameron's strategy people.

Maybe he could have done with a Dave Smith or a Jane Higginbotham. A chap called Matthew Elliott did OK for the opposition.

Anonymous said...

Forgot to say - Korski's dishonesty - his "do whatever it takes" approach - makes me much more wary/paranoid about the Tory Remainers.

If that's their level of probity we can expect a stitch-up.