Thread by @uk_domain_names

After we leave the EU, we won’t be members any more.

The EU will treat us the same as they would any other third country. Not better. Not worse. The same.

Why? *Because we’re not members*.

That’s all you need to know to understand why a no-deal Brexit creates so many issues.

Yet the UK Government pushes the narrative, at every opportunity, that we are somehow being put upon by the EU. That they are seeking to make life difficult, for instance by enforcing border controls.

Weasel words, nothing more.

We chose to leave. The EU are not kicking us out.

It is British exceptionalism to expect the benefits of EU membership to continue after we leave.

The EU are behaving fairly, logically, applying the rules we signed up to willingly.

But the EU makes a great scapegoat for Government failings, so the finger pointing continues.

Of course, if we get the Withdrawal Agreement passed, that will replicate a lot of the benefits of EU membership, for a limited time.

But:

1) we will already be out of the EU and its treaties

2) WA is for the mutual benefit of the UK & EU, not because of EU obligations to us

As for the Political Declaration, it’s a wishlist, not something that’s in any way legally binding.

It documents what we hope to get under the absolute best case scenario, like an optimistic child’s letter to Santa.

Reality will almost certainly play out very differently.

That’s why, when you see the Government or individual MPs assert as fact things that are in the Political Declaration, you need to realise they’re crossing their fingers behind their backs.

There is no way that they can guarantee what they’re saying will actually happen.

The real, proper grownup Brexit negotiations will start after Brexit Day, and will last for years or decades.

That’s when we will get to have a crack at turning the hoped-for aspirations of the Political Declaration into something tangible.

But the EU will be looking to

get the best terms it can out of the situation too.

It’s in no way a negotiation of equals.

We may be one of the largest economies, but we’re a mere minnow compared to the EU shark. And other sharks, including the US and China, would also love a big bite of us.

The EU’s options are wide open. It still has 27 members and one of the largest markets in the world. It also has free trade deals with over 50 countries, and thousands of other treaties to make business - and life - easier for its 440 million citizens.

We will have... nothing.

That’s the bombshell at the heart of Brexit: in order to free ourselves to build new relationships, we first have to destroy all our existing ones.

That will happen automatically, on Brexit Day (although the transition period, if agreed, will delay the agony for 2-3 years).

So we will go into the negotiations about our future in the weakest position any country has ever found itself in. (No other country in history has torn up all its deals before.)

We can’t even threaten to walk away, because we’re *already out* of the EU. It would be like

threatening your ex-wife with divorce.

Every country and trading block we try to negotiate with will know just how dire our position is. They will know that once the clock runs down on the transition period, we risk going over the cliff edge of no deal.

We will be forced to

take anything we’re given, make every concession we’re asked to.

Because the alternative is even more stark. If we can’t replace the relationships we shredded on Brexit Day, then at the end of the transition period all the consequences of Brexit will hit us like a freight train.