Made by a pretty smart fellow, though obviously a Brexiteer.
Combine British schizophrenia about the decision arrived at by referendum (and former British PM David Cameron is no doubt permanently enshrined as a blackguard for having made the monumentally bad decision to hold the Brexit referendum in the first place) with the pettiness so far evidenced by Brussels during Brexit negotiations and what do you get? Probably the ugliest of departures from the European Union for Britain and the rest of the UK.
So, Britain: have you paid the Iron Price? Well? HAVE YOU? ;-)
"I’m 99% sure the Brexit negotiations are going to collapse and the UK will thus be entirely separate from the EU. In the medium term that will be a good thing, but in the short term it will cause chaos for the UK, Ireland and probably much of Europe.
Why do I think this? because the EU leadership want to punish the UK for having the temerity to
Other nations have in the past had referenda on various parts of EU membership – France, Ireland and Holland come to mind as ones who have voted against the EU at various times. Whenever the vote has been against the EU, the population has either been told to do it again and this time get the “right” answer or the EU and national governments have simply ignored the vote and pressed on anyway.
The EU elites are simply in denial that a government would not do the same but the Conservatives are absolutely united on the principle that “Out means out” and that therefore the UK will be leaving.
Right now the argument is about the “non-negotiable” cost of leaving, which, as Tim Worstall points out, is really the cost of staying. The EU insists this has to be resolved before anything else and the lead EU negotiator has been really snarky about the UK position. He is of course wrong, only an idiot or a Eurocrat (but I repeat myself) would think it sensible to first agree the price and then haggle on what you get for the money.
A sane EU would first go for the obvious win-win points get them out of the way and then go for the trickier ones. For example no one wants a European version of Indian partition to take place across the English Channel so it is obvious that a) visitors who are non-workers and not entitled to benefits/healthcare etc. will be allowed to enter and live as freely as they do now and that b) current residents as of some defined date like the day the UK formally submitted its leave notification will also be allowed to work etc. etc. Then you’d work on other easy things such as the academic research funding (the UK wants this and has stated its willingness to continue to contribute to it) before moving onto slightly trickier points like, say, the Irish border, customs inspections and how to avoid them by doing the paperwork properly and so on. Only once you’ve got the obvious stuff knocked out do you go to the contentious issues like payment, tariffs and so on.
In my opinion the fact that the EU is attempting to do the whole thing bass ackwards is a strong indication that they want it to fail unless the UK is humiliated. I’m fairly sure that HMG is not keen on the humiliation idea so therefore I expect they will prefer a hard Brexit with no agreement to some kind of deal where the UK pays a huge amount to not really escape the tentacles of Brussels other than in a few meaningless areas. This might also explain why Jean Claude Druncker spouts utter bollocks regarding the negotiations. On the other hand it is possible that this bass ackwards approach is because the payment issue is the most important thing for the Eurocrats personally. If the UK pays nothing then the EU budget will take a big hit and the generous Eurocrat lifestyle may have to go on a bit of a diet, not that the Eurocrat perks will likely suffer much, after all some of the top ones have nice lucrative side jobs, more likely there will just be less pork to spread around and thus the EU will become less popular with the populace. Either way the UK clearly needs to play hardball on the contribution issue and work on contingency plans for when the EU stomps off in a huff because it isn’t getting the money it wants."
Prediction: Hard Brexit - L'Ombre de l'Olivier
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
Combine British schizophrenia about the decision arrived at by referendum (and former British PM David Cameron is no doubt permanently enshrined as a blackguard for having made the monumentally bad decision to hold the Brexit referendum in the first place) with the pettiness so far evidenced by Brussels during Brexit negotiations and what do you get? Probably the ugliest of departures from the European Union for Britain and the rest of the UK.
So, Britain: have you paid the Iron Price? Well? HAVE YOU? ;-)
"I’m 99% sure the Brexit negotiations are going to collapse and the UK will thus be entirely separate from the EU. In the medium term that will be a good thing, but in the short term it will cause chaos for the UK, Ireland and probably much of Europe.
Why do I think this? because the EU leadership want to punish the UK for having the temerity to
- hold a referendum on the EU
- actually follow the popular wishes expressed in said referendum
Other nations have in the past had referenda on various parts of EU membership – France, Ireland and Holland come to mind as ones who have voted against the EU at various times. Whenever the vote has been against the EU, the population has either been told to do it again and this time get the “right” answer or the EU and national governments have simply ignored the vote and pressed on anyway.
The EU elites are simply in denial that a government would not do the same but the Conservatives are absolutely united on the principle that “Out means out” and that therefore the UK will be leaving.
Right now the argument is about the “non-negotiable” cost of leaving, which, as Tim Worstall points out, is really the cost of staying. The EU insists this has to be resolved before anything else and the lead EU negotiator has been really snarky about the UK position. He is of course wrong, only an idiot or a Eurocrat (but I repeat myself) would think it sensible to first agree the price and then haggle on what you get for the money.
A sane EU would first go for the obvious win-win points get them out of the way and then go for the trickier ones. For example no one wants a European version of Indian partition to take place across the English Channel so it is obvious that a) visitors who are non-workers and not entitled to benefits/healthcare etc. will be allowed to enter and live as freely as they do now and that b) current residents as of some defined date like the day the UK formally submitted its leave notification will also be allowed to work etc. etc. Then you’d work on other easy things such as the academic research funding (the UK wants this and has stated its willingness to continue to contribute to it) before moving onto slightly trickier points like, say, the Irish border, customs inspections and how to avoid them by doing the paperwork properly and so on. Only once you’ve got the obvious stuff knocked out do you go to the contentious issues like payment, tariffs and so on.
In my opinion the fact that the EU is attempting to do the whole thing bass ackwards is a strong indication that they want it to fail unless the UK is humiliated. I’m fairly sure that HMG is not keen on the humiliation idea so therefore I expect they will prefer a hard Brexit with no agreement to some kind of deal where the UK pays a huge amount to not really escape the tentacles of Brussels other than in a few meaningless areas. This might also explain why Jean Claude Druncker spouts utter bollocks regarding the negotiations. On the other hand it is possible that this bass ackwards approach is because the payment issue is the most important thing for the Eurocrats personally. If the UK pays nothing then the EU budget will take a big hit and the generous Eurocrat lifestyle may have to go on a bit of a diet, not that the Eurocrat perks will likely suffer much, after all some of the top ones have nice lucrative side jobs, more likely there will just be less pork to spread around and thus the EU will become less popular with the populace. Either way the UK clearly needs to play hardball on the contribution issue and work on contingency plans for when the EU stomps off in a huff because it isn’t getting the money it wants."
Prediction: Hard Brexit - L'Ombre de l'Olivier
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."