“They are using time pressure…”
Now he’s blaming the EU for the fact that the clock is ticking. As if the only reason it keeps ticking is because the EU keeps reminding him about it. You gotta larf.
The latest craze in the UK is John Claude Juncker face masks for your bonfire night parties instead of Guy Fawkes.
All quite farcical really as its the British who actually wanted the transitional period. Davis has no authority to do anything whatsoever and can be easily shipped out at any moment. In the big picture, the man is irrelevant.
Who does? That’s the problem. Negotiating when you don’t have the authority to make decisions yourself and nobody else is setting clear parameters, is an impossible position to be in.
Which side of the table is calling the shots??.. Barnier insist that only this or that will be discussed… Uk wants to discuss other things… Barnier says it’s all moving too slowly… if they’re not willing to be flexible in “negotiations”… funny word that, when one is dictating what is to be negotiated… and when the UK doesn’t agree… he moans it’s taking too long… The EU steam roller approach to “negotiating” ?
If every other nation in the EU wasn’t up shit creek, they might be more flexible… but they do not want to give UK an easy time of it… as many of the other EU27 would want to cut “Special deals” within their system… and the Feds don’t want it all to go to hell in a bucket!
Calling the shots? Only one side is wanting to leave and that will have to be within the terms agreeable to the other members. I thought the lame, once we’ve done it the majority of others will follow justification for jumping over a precipice had died the death it deserved. It’s good to see it’s up and running with some good old stalwarts. Tally ho!
But the UK shot itself in the foot at the first meeting by officially agreeing to the staged approach, that it now doesn’t want to go along with.
The UK doesn’t have a problem with U-turns and saying one thing one day and another thing the next, but the EU is being strong and stable and sticking to what was agreed. Obviously there’s more to it than that, but technically the UK has given the EU the perfect argument.
Phase one wasn’t really supposed to be negotiations, it was intended to be reaching a consensus how the various treaties and agreements should be interpreted in the context of Brexit, not negotiating new agreements. The fact that the UK wants to be creative and imaginative when all that is needed is simply to clarify what the agreements say about citizens’ rights and how they should be implemented, what fnancial commitments they have signed up for, etc, is what’s holding everything up. The negotiations per se were supposed to start in Phase Two, once that was sorted out. You can negotiate future relationships - you can’t negotiate what is already covered by agreements and treaties.
The UK has shot itself in the head with Brexit - an additional wound in the foot is almost inconsequential.
Technically, I believe that the UK can simply leave without there being any need for “terms agreeable to the other members”.
Whether that would be a good idea in the longer term is another question of course, but having invoked Article 50, the UK can leave the EU whether the other countries agree terms or not.
It could be said that one reason for the two year notice period is to give the EU the opportunity to re-adjust itself to the situation of a country suddenly deciding to leave, especially if that country happens to be a substantial net contributor to the budget.
Is that reply for real? Of course the UK can walk away without any deal but what on earth will that achieve? Europe is Britain’s closest and largest trading partner it’s not simply a case of finding another market to replace it. If such a market existed why should they welcome Britain with open arms? Britain needs good contact with the EU and for that reason it cannot continue to be arrogant and demand the impossible.
The UK will leave the EU in March 2019, never mind “can”.
If there is no agreement then it will simply leave. The other members are agreeable to that, they have already agreed to it when they accepted article 50.
What the UK can’t do is leave on its own terms. If it leaves with no agreement, it cuts all ties. If it wants to retain any ties at all, the details have to be agreed by both sides.
The two years are to try to agree terms, since most people think this would be better for all concerned than leaving with no agreement. And as you say, had things been clearer then this would also have given everyone time to plan ahead - but since it’s still hard to see which way the mop will flop, people can’t actually start planning ahead yet.
Its all quite good fun, rock and a hard place with no way out. There is no win win for anyone, only lose lose whatever way you look at it. UK out,economy flops and its told you so from half the population. UK leaves and does fine and its told you so from the other half of the population.
The big problem is the not knowing but being English there are plenty of things I know.
The English do not plan ahead, mend and make do, do not spend a pound if they can get away with spending 50p, only do something when they really really have to and there always has to be cash involved.
The UK is as the UK is simply because its a member of the EU, it was a failing state before it joined and it took nearly twenty years to catch up. Without foreign investment from companies and individuals it would probably still be a failing state.
People bang on about the trade deficit and how much the EU 27 need the UK because they sell us so much stuff, when the obvious question should be, why do they sell us so much stuff? Obviously because we as a nation cannot compete, so how will we as a nation compete outside the EU off on our own. As yet I’ve seen no one answer that one.
What we will never know of course is whether, had it been handled better, it would have been possible to find a win win. If the UK hadn’t been so hostile, if it hadn’t given the EU so many excuses/reasons for losing goodwill and trust. If it had actually known what it wanted and had a coherent strategy, so that the EU wasn’t having to try and negotiate with an amoeba. If it had a leader with the guts and honesty to take responsibility and tough decisions. On that last point, I see that the government has delayed bring the brexit bill to parliament because it’s scared of all the problems, what’s that all about? How is delaying it going to make things any better, does it hope that all the amendments and opposition will just melt away if it buries its head in the sand for long enough?
Something inside me is still prepared to believe that Brexit could have worked, if it had been approached in the right spirit, without all the anger and EU-bashing and empty jingoism.
The difficulty with Brexit is that it is hard to engineer an unequivocal win. If we leave the EU but remain members of the EEA then the economic impact is low but we don’t “gain” much and we will loose influence over the regulations that we must follow. Also, bizarrely since the leave campaign spent so much energy convincing everyone that leaving but retaining the same deals and access to the EEA would be easy (and desirable) it seems to be an option with is no longer politically acceptable.
We could seek to stay in the customs union but would then not be able to negotiate the separate deals so beloved of Mr Fox.
Or we could do what we seem to be doing which is to head for a hard Brexit or even the “leave in a huff, no deal Brexit” which seems ever more likely day by day and do damage to our international reputation and economy that could take forty years to put right,
The longer this goes on the angrier I get about it, I’m afraid 
In my opinion brexit could never work and is the most stupid idea ever. The younger generation consider themselves European, part of Europe, born in and brought up as members of the EU, its the older generation who are the problem. The generation who seem to have a completely different memory of life outside the EU to mine. The generation who apparently didn’t all die fighting the Germans to simply allow the Germans to end up running Europe. Don’t want to be told what to do by Johnny foreigner, the ones who think because their relatives survived the black death then they can survive anything.
There’s absolutely no reason why the UK wouldn’t survive outside the EU, but logic dictates its economy will suffer, its national debt will rise, cost of living will increase, public services will be cut and infrastructure will fall further into decay. I just cannot understand what part of the UK does as well as it does simply because its part of the EU it is that brexit voters cannot understand.
It is however, possible to be European but not a member of the EU. Brexit is about leaving the EU. Even youngsters who consider themselves European don’t necessarily like what the EU stands for.
Unfortunately there also seems to be a swathe of the UK population whose anti-EU feelings seem to be tied up with anti-European feelings.
Hi Trevor,
re "There’s absolutely no reason why the UK wouldn’t survive outside the EU, but logic dictates its economy will suffer, its national debt will rise, cost of living will increase, public services will be cut and infrastructure will fall further into decay."
This does not apply to one of my UK neighbours - he is working on a contract re-setting systems for when one of the major International Banks exits London - Brexit will be providing extra work for at least one person for a couple more years yet. Yippee.
Clearly the downside is that once his project is completed he will be unemployed, the bank and thousands of employee tax-payers will all exit the UK economy - ooops.
Beyond the consequences in Europe who will want to trade with a Country that can’t be trusted to keep to contracted agreements?