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EU voter friends - I wonder if you've ever wondered what it is that the UK has objected to about various things in the Brexit negotiations? If you have, this thread might be for you.
Let's start with EU citizens' rights. What the UK wanted was for EU citizens living in the UK to have the same rights as UK citizens post-Brexit. What the EU wanted was for EU citizens to have more rights than UK citizens. The UK conceded on that.
Next money. There are 3 boxes the money falls into. One (~€2-4bn) is payments for pensions & the like. The UK was always happy to pay those. A 2nd (€17-18bn) was the UK's EU membership fee out to end-2020. The UK was happy to pay that if it stayed a de facto member til then.+
+The 3rd (€21-23bn) was more an issue of dispute. The EU wanted to charge the UK for the cost of projects the EU said it was going to spend money on in the future but hadn't spent on yet. The UK initially said the EU shld review such spending. The UK conceded on this in the deal
Next Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is only in the UK because its citizens say they want to be, & it has the right to join Ireland if it ever wants to, but in 1998 the UK promised not to give up sovereignty over NI without the explicit consent of the people of NI.+
+The EU proposed that when the UK left the EU, the UK wld hv to give up sovereignty over NI. Instead, the EU wld set NI's main economic laws & decide its international agreements. NI voters wld hv no mechanism by which to influence EU decisions. This is called the "backstop".
+Because the UK has promised not to give up sovereignty over NI without the explicit consent of the people of NI, UK legislators are unable to agree to the backstop - it violates the most basic promise made to the people of NI.
+The UK govt tried to limit this by keeping some image of sovereignty. So, formally speaking, the UK wld still set NI's laws provided that all the UK did was to copy out EU laws & the UK wld still formally set NI's trade policy provided that policy was a customs union with the EU
+That means that the UK govt has tried to resist the demand that the EU set all NI's main economic laws with no say by agreeing, instead, that the EU will set all the UK's main economic laws with no say. UK advocates of leaving the EU say that is worse that being an EU member.
+So, you see, my EU voter friends, the UK's objections have not been so very unreasonable. We wanted EU citizens living in the UK to have the same rights as UK citizens. We wanted only to pay EU membership fees for when we were a member. And we wanted to set our own laws.
+Those now advocating No Deal do not do so because they hate the EU or those that live there. We wanted a close relationship with our neighbours based on respect, & fair & equal dealing. Unfortunately, from our point of view, such a relationship has not been made available to us.
