Thread by @Usherwood

While we kick up our heels, waiting for stuff to come out of the Tunnel, here's a thought or two on the basic dynamic of Art.50:

1/

The underlying issue in this negotiation has been that the party who triggered it - the UK - did so without a firm plan and strategic intention in place, and has continued to fail to create such a plan or intention

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To be more precise, there was a decision in #EUref to leave the EU, but no consensus about why that decision was taken

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The initial phase from June 2016 was about various interests trying to own and impose such a consensus: hence all the talk about what #EUref 'meant'

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The closest we got were May's reassurances about what Brexit 'meant', but these were essentially just that - reassurances

Red lines do not a strategic vision make

5/

.@davidallengreen can say (and has said) better than me the impact of triggering Art.50 without a plan, especially given that it sets running a clock to a change - no-deal exit - that can only be averted by active agreement of the UK and EU

6/

But this issue is then compounded by the misjudgement of #GE17, when May loses much of her credibility within her party and reopens the gates to contestation of the 'meaning' of #EUref and #Brexit

7/

Thus we have a UK without a strategic direction, where even the basics of UK preferences are under open and often bitter debate

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This makes the UK look unreliable as a negotiating partner

Which in turn makes interlocutors want to act to protect their interests as much as they can in the face of that unreliableness [not a word, but YKWIM)

9/

Let's look at a couple of examples of this.

At the biggest scale, the emphasis of the EU on avoiding cherry-picking has been reinforced by UK uncertainty: the erratic nature of UK requests/demands makes any concession look like the thin end of a wedge

10/

However, the defence of this has been helped by repeated UK requests for things that the EU will never agree to, such as splitting up the 4 freedoms: it becomes easier to roll a lot more under the title of 'principle' when faced with scattergun gambits

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The other big area is the Irish dimension.

IE/EU concern about UK intentions and reliability have been major drivers of the move to a backstop, which is the protection par excellence against unreliability

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If there had been a clear UK strategic objective, then that would have set an end-state from which a transitional arrangement could have been built back from, with much higher levels of confidence about intention and protection of GFA elements

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That would obviate much of the need for a backstop, and one had still been demanded, then it would have been easier for the UK to accept, because it would have a clear plan to avoid its use

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Instead, we have a HMG with senior members still unwilling/unable to accept a backstop, in considerable part because there's no certainty about the future path, hence fears about being locked in transitional arrangements for a long time

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In sum: no strategic goal means no certainty about the journey being undertaken, which will make the process all the less manageable, because trust becomes so problematic

/end