1. Divorce issues first, then the future relationship, which can only be negotiated after Brexit.
2. HMG negotiates with the EU as a whole, represented by Barnier, not the 27 individual member states.
Basic stuff at this stage.
2. HMG negotiates with the EU as a whole, represented by Barnier, not the 27 individual member states.
Basic stuff at this stage.
Rather than seek to dismantle existing areas of agreement, HMG needs to focus on the areas where agreement is still needed. Otherwise we are headed for no deal.
And no deal surely means no deals in the future on anything HMG might want until confidence between the parties has been restored. Which would mean dealing with the divorce issues. So why waste time like this?
For example, I am one of those (very few?) Irish people who feel that Varadkar was incautious in his wording regarding flights. It left itself open to the interpretation that he was talking about overflights, whereas I presume he was indeed talking about the ability to land.
And that ability to land will in fact require a deal, as Michael O'Leary has been frantically signalling since 2016.
So it is fair to point out that no deal would indeed be catastrophically bad not only for a lot of businesses but for a lot of people. And unfortunately right now it seems that this is where HMG is headed.
Trinity term 2019 risks being an interesting one...
