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Plenty of people in the UK not limited to the most pro no-deal voices are criticising the EU's approach to Brexit negotiations, blaming them for the breakdown. A few in the EU as well. Looking at it in a different way, what do we learn from EU and UK negotiations elsewhere?
The UK has struggled in most major international negotiations to date. The previous Government thought they could avoid a WTO negotiation on agriculture quotas and didn't, and have had limited success rolling over trade deals with major partners
Looking at trade deal rollovers, Japan and Canada said no, Switzerland and Norway are only partial, of our major trading partners only Korea after some hesitation agreed to roll over the trade deal. (this story from Canada does not paint a pretty picture) cbc.ca/news/politics/…
Also in terms of new trade agreements the UK picked US, Australia and New Zealand for reasons never given, have no identified offensive interests, and these talks are also reported to be struggling... telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/…
So whilst it is possible that the UK is not to blame for the breakdown in talks with the EU, it would be consistent with the wider picture for the UK to have no clearly identified interests or sense of realism... now turning to the EU...
The EU is pretty good at completing trade agreements with third countries, as we've seen recently with Japan, Vietnam, Canada, Singapore... however negotiations with China (investment agreement) and US (TTIP) were less positive
The EU has also struggled with many fundamental internal negotiations, not least in Euro sustainability or migration, not that either are easy issues. The ship keeps sailing, but you can see the issues with getting all Member States together in making decisions
Concluding from this brief survey of circumstantial evidence, the UK over the last three years has a poor record in virtually all negotiations, so it's unlikely we've handled Brexit talks any better. But the EU isn't always flexible in complex talks with multiple interests.
Even now the EU could be handling the current Brexit impasse better. But the pattern of UK Government handling negotiations badly because they don't know what they want is so overwhelming it is hard to reasonably look elsewhere for the primary culprits.. /end
