Thread by @Usherwood

A quick reminder of why not having your contingency plan in place is a bad move when negotiating

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politicshome.com/news/article/c…

Negotiation is about trying to get a better outcome through agreement with someone else than you can achieve by yourself

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That has lots of implications, but the one we'll focus on here is the implication of relative gains under agreement and non-agreement conditions

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The more you can improve your non-agreement outcome, the better it is for you, since it's your ultimate baseline (because you control it)

It also means you can be more picky about your agreement with others, because your fall-back is improved

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At the very least, it protects you against pushy interlocutors (because you don't have to submit to their demands) and may even allow you to ask more of them

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So a strong contingency is good, whatever outcome you are aiming for

If you want a deal, it helps you get a better deal

If you don't want a deal, it helps you get a better outcome

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Therefore, there can be only two reasons why you'd stand down a contingency plan

One's good, the other's not

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The good reason is that under an objective evaluation of the situation, you conclude you are in an optimal position already and non-agreement will not compromise that

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The bad reason is that you think binning your contingency will scare your counterpart in making concessions, because non-agreement is bad for them.

Basically, playing a game of chicken (h/t @jdportes)

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That's a bad reason twice over:

1st, it assumes you have perfect knowledge of their objectives and evaluations of outcomes

2nd, it weakens your own outcome, should non-agreement happen

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So, not having Yelllowhammer (or equivalent) in place is a really bad move by the UK

In addition, even the outcome with an agreement requires a lot of the Yellowhammer work to be in train, so it makes even less sense, but that's for another thread

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In sum

/end