So long UK, farewell.
A short thread on the Brexit negotiations. 1
A short thread on the Brexit negotiations. 1
The biggest problem the UK govt faces in the talks is that it has rhetorically entrapped itself. Not just over past 2 years.Decades of lies about the EU from leaders who then did a 360 degree turn in asking people to vote Remain constituted an impossible obstacle to overcome.2
The lies took different forms. Apart from the Leave side which continued on its determined path toward “freedom” by reinforcing the familiar narratives about the evil EU, Mrs May and her colleagues lied to themselves about what they could achieve in these talks. 3
UK leaders hardly bothered to learn how the EU worked, including senior cabinet ministers who met EU colleagues regularly around the Council table. That ignorance did not disappear after June 2016. Some ministers and MPs seem as ill-informed today about how EU works as ever. 4
Misunderstanding & mischaracterization always play a role in negotiations.The great British mistake was to miscalculate about the collective EU will to defend the single market regime. Rather than truly educating themselves about what faced them,Tory leaders talked poker games. 5
When May became PM she had choice of behaving responsibly or continuing to bait the EU. She choose the latter,manifest in her 2016 Tory conference speech.The trail of rhetorical entrapment leads back to Birmingham. May’s speech, much more incindirary than Thatcher’s Bruges 1988.6
At every subsequent point up to Chequers,she had the option to be more conciliatory. Notwithstanding the parliamentary arithmetic, she opted for ‘red lines’ time &time again.These originated with Blair’s fear of Mail and Sun. UK now paying a terrible price for tabloid diplomacy.7
Salzburg was an opportunity to “de-dramatize” as M. Barnier put it. Mrs May did not take it. Now she has backed herself and her government into a corner it may prove impossible to emerge from. Rhetorical entrapment carries significant real-world consequences. 8
We are seeing a cumulative process,composed of multiple different dimensions, playing out as both tragedy and farce simultaneously. Mrs May had real options in 2016. She threw away any advantages she had. It is clear that she cannot conclude talks without bringing down her govt 9
The most imp. comments today came from Merkel/Macron.They’ve remained consistent all the way through & resisted the temptation to play to the gallery.Steadfast in repeating that no state can be simultaneously inside and outside the EU.
This was UK choice. It has consequences. 10
This was UK choice. It has consequences. 10
So,unless Mrs May engineers a dramatic climedown over the next month and conceded that UK cannot be both inside the EU and outside,this will be all over. Given that there is no HOC maj for (1) No Deal (2) Chequers (3) second ref, only a general election can resolve the problem 11
Finally, I’ve said all along that the Brexit crisis can only be resolved in London. Brexit has its roots in the Tory Maastricht insurrection and can only end with a decisive resolution where it started. The European Union cannot resolve the Brexit conundrum. Only Britain can. 12
