[Politics] Brexit

[nicko31]

Christ on a bike. Criticise James O'Brien then post something from Gove.

The leader of the leave campaign who has been proved catagorically wrong on everything and in any other profession would have resigned in disgrace

Gaslit nation

But did our coke head friend show in the end that the UK held on the cards, eh?

 

[Randy McNob]

5 reasons the UK failed in Brexit talks

Tony Blair’s former chief of staff argues the UK has performed disastrously in Brexit negotiations.

December 30, 2020 3:47 pm
Jonathan Powell was Downing Street chief of staff and chief British negotiator in Northern Ireland from 1997-2007.

I have spent the last forty years involved in international negotiations of one sort or another, and I have never seen a British government perform worse than they did in the four years of negotiations that concluded with the Christmas Eve Brexit agreement.

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of Brexit, purely in terms of negotiating technique, it is an object lesson in how not to do it. As the bluster and self-congratulation dies down, it is worth standing back and looking at what we can learn from the debacle.


We have ended up with an agreement which is more or less where the EU started. It is true that there have been a few sops to the U.K. position on the dynamic alignment of state aid and the role of the European Court of Justice. But on every major economic point, even including fisheries, the EU has got its way.

There are five principal reasons why.

First, we massively overestimated the strength of our negotiating position. It is true we are equally sovereign as the EU, but we are not sovereign equals. They are much larger, and we depend on them much more for trade than they do on us. That is why we have had to back down every step of the way, accepting EU insistence that we agree the divorce agreement first, putting a trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K., accepting a single legal treaty and finally Boris Johnson caving in just before the end-of-year deadline. The same disparity of strength exists with the U.S., and we should bear that in mind during trade negotiations with Washington.

Second, we fired the starting gun before we had worked out our own position, with the result that we spent the first two years negotiating with ourselves while EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier’s clock was ticking. Triggering Article 50 — the legal mechanism that kicked off a time-limited exit process — before we were ready meant we constantly found ourselves facing a self-inflicted deadline by which we had to concede or face severe economic and political costs. We should have waited until we knew what we wanted and only then pulled the trigger rather than blundering in without knowing our desired end point. This was not the fault of the negotiators but of their political leaders.

Third, we prioritized principles of sovereignty over economic interests and put defensive steps protecting a theoretical concept we don’t actually want to use ahead of practical benefits. Sovereignty is a nebulous concept — as the newly-published assessment by the “Star Chamber” of the European Research Group of pro-Brexit Tories unconsciously demonstrates in distinguishing between practical and theoretical sovereignty. In any international agreement, from the NATO treaty to the Good Friday Agreement, a state limits its sovereignty, but it usually does so in return for practical benefits.

With this agreement with the EU, we have done the opposite. We have defended the theoretical possibility of doing things we don’t actually want to do, like lower our environmental standards or support failing industries, in return for giving up measures that would increase our prosperity. So we have spent the last weeks fighting (and losing) over fishing, which represents 0.1 percent of our economy, while accepting that services, which represents 80 percent of our economy and where we have a competitive advantage, is excluded from the agreement. We have therefore ended up with a free-trade agreement which is worse in substantive terms than many others the EU has recently concluded. And we have certainly not secured “no non-tariff barriers,” as Boris Johnson has claimed.

Fourth, trust is fundamental to any successful negotiation. We willfully destroyed the EU’s trust in our commitment to implement what we had already agreed by threatening to unilaterally renege on the Northern Ireland Protocol. No. 10 reportedly thought they could provoke a crisis and thereby give themselves the whip hand as the EU panicked. Instead the EU kept calmly ploughing on and achieved its objectives while we wasted time on silly tactical games. We were forced to back down before we could sign the FTA, so we made no substantive gain, but the price will be paid in the future as we try to negotiate further agreements with the EU on financial services and justice and home affairs issues in the absence of trust.

Fifth, and most unforgivably, we never developed a strategic plan for the negotiations. It is a strange thing — you would never enter into a military or political campaign without a strategy — but the government seemed to think it was alright to turn up for these talks and hope things would work out. As a result we were constantly reacting to EU positions throughout and even agreed to negotiate from an EU text rather than a U.K. one. Unsurprisingly, the agreement ended up being mostly what the EU wanted.

It is worth learning from these failures in negotiation strategy because we are embarking on a series of trade negotiations with countries around the world. If we want to do more than simply replicate existing agreements those countries have with the EU, we are going to have to do a lot better.

And if we think the Brexit negotiations with the EU itself are over, we are about to be sadly disappointed. We are at the beginning of what will be decades of permanent negotiation with our much larger and more powerful neighbor. We do not want our government to make the same mistakes again or we will all pay for it.

https://www.politico.eu/article/5-r..._901KeVoIJ9YX5kVatk--8pR9GaAHcQQPlvlpcjFECIWI

 

[pastafarian]

5 reasons the UK failed in Brexit talks

Tony Blair’s former chief of staff argues the UK has performed disastrously in Brexit negotiations.

December 30, 2020 3:47 pm
Jonathan Powell was Downing Street chief of staff and chief British negotiator in Northern Ireland from 1997-2007.

I have spent the last forty years involved in international negotiations of one sort or another, and I have never seen a British government perform worse than they did in the four years of negotiations that concluded with the Christmas Eve Brexit agreement.

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of Brexit, purely in terms of negotiating technique, it is an object lesson in how not to do it. As the bluster and self-congratulation dies down, it is worth standing back and looking at what we can learn from the debacle.


We have ended up with an agreement which is more or less where the EU started. It is true that there have been a few sops to the U.K. position on the dynamic alignment of state aid and the role of the European Court of Justice. But on every major economic point, even including fisheries, the EU has got its way.

There are five principal reasons why.

First, we massively overestimated the strength of our negotiating position. It is true we are equally sovereign as the EU, but we are not sovereign equals. They are much larger, and we depend on them much more for trade than they do on us. That is why we have had to back down every step of the way, accepting EU insistence that we agree the divorce agreement first, putting a trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K., accepting a single legal treaty and finally Boris Johnson caving in just before the end-of-year deadline. The same disparity of strength exists with the U.S., and we should bear that in mind during trade negotiations with Washington.

Second, we fired the starting gun before we had worked out our own position, with the result that we spent the first two years negotiating with ourselves while EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier’s clock was ticking. Triggering Article 50 — the legal mechanism that kicked off a time-limited exit process — before we were ready meant we constantly found ourselves facing a self-inflicted deadline by which we had to concede or face severe economic and political costs. We should have waited until we knew what we wanted and only then pulled the trigger rather than blundering in without knowing our desired end point. This was not the fault of the negotiators but of their political leaders.

Third, we prioritized principles of sovereignty over economic interests and put defensive steps protecting a theoretical concept we don’t actually want to use ahead of practical benefits. Sovereignty is a nebulous concept — as the newly-published assessment by the “Star Chamber” of the European Research Group of pro-Brexit Tories unconsciously demonstrates in distinguishing between practical and theoretical sovereignty. In any international agreement, from the NATO treaty to the Good Friday Agreement, a state limits its sovereignty, but it usually does so in return for practical benefits.

With this agreement with the EU, we have done the opposite. We have defended the theoretical possibility of doing things we don’t actually want to do, like lower our environmental standards or support failing industries, in return for giving up measures that would increase our prosperity. So we have spent the last weeks fighting (and losing) over fishing, which represents 0.1 percent of our economy, while accepting that services, which represents 80 percent of our economy and where we have a competitive advantage, is excluded from the agreement. We have therefore ended up with a free-trade agreement which is worse in substantive terms than many others the EU has recently concluded. And we have certainly not secured “no non-tariff barriers,” as Boris Johnson has claimed.

Fourth, trust is fundamental to any successful negotiation. We willfully destroyed the EU’s trust in our commitment to implement what we had already agreed by threatening to unilaterally renege on the Northern Ireland Protocol. No. 10 reportedly thought they could provoke a crisis and thereby give themselves the whip hand as the EU panicked. Instead the EU kept calmly ploughing on and achieved its objectives while we wasted time on silly tactical games. We were forced to back down before we could sign the FTA, so we made no substantive gain, but the price will be paid in the future as we try to negotiate further agreements with the EU on financial services and justice and home affairs issues in the absence of trust.

Fifth, and most unforgivably, we never developed a strategic plan for the negotiations. It is a strange thing — you would never enter into a military or political campaign without a strategy — but the government seemed to think it was alright to turn up for these talks and hope things would work out. As a result we were constantly reacting to EU positions throughout and even agreed to negotiate from an EU text rather than a U.K. one. Unsurprisingly, the agreement ended up being mostly what the EU wanted.

It is worth learning from these failures in negotiation strategy because we are embarking on a series of trade negotiations with countries around the world. If we want to do more than simply replicate existing agreements those countries have with the EU, we are going to have to do a lot better.

And if we think the Brexit negotiations with the EU itself are over, we are about to be sadly disappointed. We are at the beginning of what will be decades of permanent negotiation with our much larger and more powerful neighbor. We do not want our government to make the same mistakes again or we will all pay for it.

https://www.politico.eu/article/5-r..._901KeVoIJ9YX5kVatk--8pR9GaAHcQQPlvlpcjFECIWI

 

[JC Footy Genius]

View attachment 131927

That post should have come with a health warning for poor old (second/third account) Randy, ... a (non-white) person bedecked in union flags supporting UK/Brexit with a Guardian logo will blow his tiny/prejudiced mind.

 

[Eeyore]

only 17% of people think it's a good deal, democracy

View attachment 131914

And 0% have a clue what's in it.

Only the 'don't knows' have made an honest assessment.

Dumb poll.

 

[Eeyore]

Very funny from Gove there. Not as good as Hague was though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ26SmDzxHE

He needs to be careful calling out Starmer for stabbing others in the back though....

 

[sydney]

Very funny from Gove there. Not as good as Hague was though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ26SmDzxHE

He needs to be careful calling out Starmer for stabbing others in the back though....

as opposed to Cameron who has stabbed the country in the back , shat on us and set us on fire.

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

5 reasons the UK failed in Brexit talks

Tony Blair’s former chief of staff argues the UK has performed disastrously in Brexit negotiations.

December 30, 2020 3:47 pm
Jonathan Powell was Downing Street chief of staff and chief British negotiator in Northern Ireland from 1997-2007.

I have spent the last forty years involved in international negotiations of one sort or another, and I have never seen a British government perform worse than they did in the four years of negotiations that concluded with the Christmas Eve Brexit agreement.

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of Brexit, purely in terms of negotiating technique, it is an object lesson in how not to do it. As the bluster and self-congratulation dies down, it is worth standing back and looking at what we can learn from the debacle.


We have ended up with an agreement which is more or less where the EU started. It is true that there have been a few sops to the U.K. position on the dynamic alignment of state aid and the role of the European Court of Justice. But on every major economic point, even including fisheries, the EU has got its way.

There are five principal reasons why.

First, we massively overestimated the strength of our negotiating position. It is true we are equally sovereign as the EU, but we are not sovereign equals. They are much larger, and we depend on them much more for trade than they do on us. That is why we have had to back down every step of the way, accepting EU insistence that we agree the divorce agreement first, putting a trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K., accepting a single legal treaty and finally Boris Johnson caving in just before the end-of-year deadline. The same disparity of strength exists with the U.S., and we should bear that in mind during trade negotiations with Washington.

Second, we fired the starting gun before we had worked out our own position, with the result that we spent the first two years negotiating with ourselves while EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier’s clock was ticking. Triggering Article 50 — the legal mechanism that kicked off a time-limited exit process — before we were ready meant we constantly found ourselves facing a self-inflicted deadline by which we had to concede or face severe economic and political costs. We should have waited until we knew what we wanted and only then pulled the trigger rather than blundering in without knowing our desired end point. This was not the fault of the negotiators but of their political leaders.

Third, we prioritized principles of sovereignty over economic interests and put defensive steps protecting a theoretical concept we don’t actually want to use ahead of practical benefits. Sovereignty is a nebulous concept — as the newly-published assessment by the “Star Chamber” of the European Research Group of pro-Brexit Tories unconsciously demonstrates in distinguishing between practical and theoretical sovereignty. In any international agreement, from the NATO treaty to the Good Friday Agreement, a state limits its sovereignty, but it usually does so in return for practical benefits.

With this agreement with the EU, we have done the opposite. We have defended the theoretical possibility of doing things we don’t actually want to do, like lower our environmental standards or support failing industries, in return for giving up measures that would increase our prosperity. So we have spent the last weeks fighting (and losing) over fishing, which represents 0.1 percent of our economy, while accepting that services, which represents 80 percent of our economy and where we have a competitive advantage, is excluded from the agreement. We have therefore ended up with a free-trade agreement which is worse in substantive terms than many others the EU has recently concluded. And we have certainly not secured “no non-tariff barriers,” as Boris Johnson has claimed.

Fourth, trust is fundamental to any successful negotiation. We willfully destroyed the EU’s trust in our commitment to implement what we had already agreed by threatening to unilaterally renege on the Northern Ireland Protocol. No. 10 reportedly thought they could provoke a crisis and thereby give themselves the whip hand as the EU panicked. Instead the EU kept calmly ploughing on and achieved its objectives while we wasted time on silly tactical games. We were forced to back down before we could sign the FTA, so we made no substantive gain, but the price will be paid in the future as we try to negotiate further agreements with the EU on financial services and justice and home affairs issues in the absence of trust.

Fifth, and most unforgivably, we never developed a strategic plan for the negotiations. It is a strange thing — you would never enter into a military or political campaign without a strategy — but the government seemed to think it was alright to turn up for these talks and hope things would work out. As a result we were constantly reacting to EU positions throughout and even agreed to negotiate from an EU text rather than a U.K. one. Unsurprisingly, the agreement ended up being mostly what the EU wanted.

It is worth learning from these failures in negotiation strategy because we are embarking on a series of trade negotiations with countries around the world. If we want to do more than simply replicate existing agreements those countries have with the EU, we are going to have to do a lot better.

And if we think the Brexit negotiations with the EU itself are over, we are about to be sadly disappointed. We are at the beginning of what will be decades of permanent negotiation with our much larger and more powerful neighbor. We do not want our government to make the same mistakes again or we will all pay for it.

https://www.politico.eu/article/5-r..._901KeVoIJ9YX5kVatk--8pR9GaAHcQQPlvlpcjFECIWI

Ok , why was it voted through Parliament yesterday ?
Regards
DF

 

[vegster]

5 reasons the UK failed in Brexit talks

Tony Blair’s former chief of staff argues the UK has performed disastrously in Brexit negotiations.

December 30, 2020 3:47 pm
Jonathan Powell was Downing Street chief of staff and chief British negotiator in Northern Ireland from 1997-2007.

I have spent the last forty years involved in international negotiations of one sort or another, and I have never seen a British government perform worse than they did in the four years of negotiations that concluded with the Christmas Eve Brexit agreement.

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of Brexit, purely in terms of negotiating technique, it is an object lesson in how not to do it. As the bluster and self-congratulation dies down, it is worth standing back and looking at what we can learn from the debacle.


We have ended up with an agreement which is more or less where the EU started. It is true that there have been a few sops to the U.K. position on the dynamic alignment of state aid and the role of the European Court of Justice. But on every major economic point, even including fisheries, the EU has got its way.

There are five principal reasons why.

First, we massively overestimated the strength of our negotiating position. It is true we are equally sovereign as the EU, but we are not sovereign equals. They are much larger, and we depend on them much more for trade than they do on us. That is why we have had to back down every step of the way, accepting EU insistence that we agree the divorce agreement first, putting a trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K., accepting a single legal treaty and finally Boris Johnson caving in just before the end-of-year deadline. The same disparity of strength exists with the U.S., and we should bear that in mind during trade negotiations with Washington.

Second, we fired the starting gun before we had worked out our own position, with the result that we spent the first two years negotiating with ourselves while EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier’s clock was ticking. Triggering Article 50 — the legal mechanism that kicked off a time-limited exit process — before we were ready meant we constantly found ourselves facing a self-inflicted deadline by which we had to concede or face severe economic and political costs. We should have waited until we knew what we wanted and only then pulled the trigger rather than blundering in without knowing our desired end point. This was not the fault of the negotiators but of their political leaders.

Third, we prioritized principles of sovereignty over economic interests and put defensive steps protecting a theoretical concept we don’t actually want to use ahead of practical benefits. Sovereignty is a nebulous concept — as the newly-published assessment by the “Star Chamber” of the European Research Group of pro-Brexit Tories unconsciously demonstrates in distinguishing between practical and theoretical sovereignty. In any international agreement, from the NATO treaty to the Good Friday Agreement, a state limits its sovereignty, but it usually does so in return for practical benefits.

With this agreement with the EU, we have done the opposite. We have defended the theoretical possibility of doing things we don’t actually want to do, like lower our environmental standards or support failing industries, in return for giving up measures that would increase our prosperity. So we have spent the last weeks fighting (and losing) over fishing, which represents 0.1 percent of our economy, while accepting that services, which represents 80 percent of our economy and where we have a competitive advantage, is excluded from the agreement. We have therefore ended up with a free-trade agreement which is worse in substantive terms than many others the EU has recently concluded. And we have certainly not secured “no non-tariff barriers,” as Boris Johnson has claimed.

Fourth, trust is fundamental to any successful negotiation. We willfully destroyed the EU’s trust in our commitment to implement what we had already agreed by threatening to unilaterally renege on the Northern Ireland Protocol. No. 10 reportedly thought they could provoke a crisis and thereby give themselves the whip hand as the EU panicked. Instead the EU kept calmly ploughing on and achieved its objectives while we wasted time on silly tactical games. We were forced to back down before we could sign the FTA, so we made no substantive gain, but the price will be paid in the future as we try to negotiate further agreements with the EU on financial services and justice and home affairs issues in the absence of trust.

Fifth, and most unforgivably, we never developed a strategic plan for the negotiations. It is a strange thing — you would never enter into a military or political campaign without a strategy — but the government seemed to think it was alright to turn up for these talks and hope things would work out. As a result we were constantly reacting to EU positions throughout and even agreed to negotiate from an EU text rather than a U.K. one. Unsurprisingly, the agreement ended up being mostly what the EU wanted.

It is worth learning from these failures in negotiation strategy because we are embarking on a series of trade negotiations with countries around the world. If we want to do more than simply replicate existing agreements those countries have with the EU, we are going to have to do a lot better.

And if we think the Brexit negotiations with the EU itself are over, we are about to be sadly disappointed. We are at the beginning of what will be decades of permanent negotiation with our much larger and more powerful neighbor. We do not want our government to make the same mistakes again or we will all pay for it.

https://www.politico.eu/article/5-r..._901KeVoIJ9YX5kVatk--8pR9GaAHcQQPlvlpcjFECIWI

All very valid points, once May was elected she could not wait to trigger Article 50 even though we had no idea what we wanted out of the negotiations. All the Tory Eurosceptics were united that the EU needed us more than we needed them and so no thought was given to what benefits of membership might be lost.

Everything was going to be " seamless".. We were going to get all the benefits of membership without paying a subscription.

We tried to weasel our way to a good deal with petty threats and trying to throw different things on the negotiating table and hissy fits when the realisation dawned of the true cost of Brexit meant. Like sulky teenagers we have had to face the fact that grown ups always get their way in the end and slamming the bedroom door when sent to bed does not constitute a victory.

So after a wasted 3 1/2 years we are now a couple of days away from the disastrous situation that was obvious to many from the start. Johnson will try to dress this up as some kind of victory but in reality we have won nothing, and lost so much.

Worst of all, how will the EU treat us, from now on, after being treated so shabbily and disrespectfully by us over negotiations when we were still partners at the time? No one in the EU will be keen to be faced with protracted negotiations again with the likes of Johnson and his arrogant and ignorant Cabinet.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

The EU doesn’t trust us at all, and why should they, when we have turned out to be so untrustworthy?
Boris doesn’t do details or read the small print!

If we renege on fishing rights, they can close down the gas & electricity lines and cables. Power cuts?

Taking back control indeed. It’s all to be renegotiated again in 2026.

 

[Deleted member 2719]

Does anyone on here actually like Abbott

A bit of laugh to get you in the spirit for tonight.

https://youtu.be/V64a_SfoesU

 

[nicko31]

The EU doesn’t trust us at all, and why should they, when we have turned out to be so untrustworthy?
Boris doesn’t do details or read the small print!

If we renege on fishing rights, they can close down the gas & electricity lines and cables. Power cuts?

Taking back control indeed. It’s all to be renegotiated again in 2026.

Or ground aviation. The EU have taken back control, it just hasn’t hit Brexiters yet

 

[Lever]

Does anyone on here actually like Abbott

A bit of laugh to get you in the spirit for tonight.

https://youtu.be/V64a_SfoesU

I am no supporter of Diane Abbott but is this rather vacuous, divisive comment on the right thread Mouldy? This is the Brexit thread, not Mouldy's jolly jibes.... although I am pleased to note you are concentrating on trivia again.

 

[nicko31]

5 reasons the UK failed in Brexit talks

Tony Blair’s former chief of staff argues the UK has performed disastrously in Brexit negotiations.

December 30, 2020 3:47 pm
Jonathan Powell was Downing Street chief of staff and chief British negotiator in Northern Ireland from 1997-2007.

I have spent the last forty years involved in international negotiations of one sort or another, and I have never seen a British government perform worse than they did in the four years of negotiations that concluded with the Christmas Eve Brexit agreement.

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of Brexit, purely in terms of negotiating technique, it is an object lesson in how not to do it. As the bluster and self-congratulation dies down, it is worth standing back and looking at what we can learn from the debacle.


We have ended up with an agreement which is more or less where the EU started. It is true that there have been a few sops to the U.K. position on the dynamic alignment of state aid and the role of the European Court of Justice. But on every major economic point, even including fisheries, the EU has got its way.

There are five principal reasons why.

First, we massively overestimated the strength of our negotiating position. It is true we are equally sovereign as the EU, but we are not sovereign equals. They are much larger, and we depend on them much more for trade than they do on us. That is why we have had to back down every step of the way, accepting EU insistence that we agree the divorce agreement first, putting a trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K., accepting a single legal treaty and finally Boris Johnson caving in just before the end-of-year deadline. The same disparity of strength exists with the U.S., and we should bear that in mind during trade negotiations with Washington.

Second, we fired the starting gun before we had worked out our own position, with the result that we spent the first two years negotiating with ourselves while EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier’s clock was ticking. Triggering Article 50 — the legal mechanism that kicked off a time-limited exit process — before we were ready meant we constantly found ourselves facing a self-inflicted deadline by which we had to concede or face severe economic and political costs. We should have waited until we knew what we wanted and only then pulled the trigger rather than blundering in without knowing our desired end point. This was not the fault of the negotiators but of their political leaders.

Third, we prioritized principles of sovereignty over economic interests and put defensive steps protecting a theoretical concept we don’t actually want to use ahead of practical benefits. Sovereignty is a nebulous concept — as the newly-published assessment by the “Star Chamber” of the European Research Group of pro-Brexit Tories unconsciously demonstrates in distinguishing between practical and theoretical sovereignty. In any international agreement, from the NATO treaty to the Good Friday Agreement, a state limits its sovereignty, but it usually does so in return for practical benefits.

With this agreement with the EU, we have done the opposite. We have defended the theoretical possibility of doing things we don’t actually want to do, like lower our environmental standards or support failing industries, in return for giving up measures that would increase our prosperity. So we have spent the last weeks fighting (and losing) over fishing, which represents 0.1 percent of our economy, while accepting that services, which represents 80 percent of our economy and where we have a competitive advantage, is excluded from the agreement. We have therefore ended up with a free-trade agreement which is worse in substantive terms than many others the EU has recently concluded. And we have certainly not secured “no non-tariff barriers,” as Boris Johnson has claimed.

Fourth, trust is fundamental to any successful negotiation. We willfully destroyed the EU’s trust in our commitment to implement what we had already agreed by threatening to unilaterally renege on the Northern Ireland Protocol. No. 10 reportedly thought they could provoke a crisis and thereby give themselves the whip hand as the EU panicked. Instead the EU kept calmly ploughing on and achieved its objectives while we wasted time on silly tactical games. We were forced to back down before we could sign the FTA, so we made no substantive gain, but the price will be paid in the future as we try to negotiate further agreements with the EU on financial services and justice and home affairs issues in the absence of trust.

Fifth, and most unforgivably, we never developed a strategic plan for the negotiations. It is a strange thing — you would never enter into a military or political campaign without a strategy — but the government seemed to think it was alright to turn up for these talks and hope things would work out. As a result we were constantly reacting to EU positions throughout and even agreed to negotiate from an EU text rather than a U.K. one. Unsurprisingly, the agreement ended up being mostly what the EU wanted.

It is worth learning from these failures in negotiation strategy because we are embarking on a series of trade negotiations with countries around the world. If we want to do more than simply replicate existing agreements those countries have with the EU, we are going to have to do a lot better.

And if we think the Brexit negotiations with the EU itself are over, we are about to be sadly disappointed. We are at the beginning of what will be decades of permanent negotiation with our much larger and more powerful neighbor. We do not want our government to make the same mistakes again or we will all pay for it.

https://www.politico.eu/article/5-r..._901KeVoIJ9YX5kVatk--8pR9GaAHcQQPlvlpcjFECIWI

In the end the EU fulfilled their objective

a) To protect the European single market

b) To demonstrate to members that life on the outside is harder and pure sovereignty is a myth

 

[Randy McNob]

I am no supporter of Diane Abbott but is this rather vacuous, divisive comment on the right thread Mouldy? This is the Brexit thread, not Mouldy's jolly jibes.... although I am pleased to note you are concentrating on trivia again.

well one thing that won't change in 2021, the usual suspects will still be slaves to the right wing propaganda machine

 

[wellquickwoody]

Ok , why was it voted through Parliament yesterday ?
Regards
DF

I am neither for or against anymore, why would I be? I was a remainer as I believed the positives outweighed the negatives, but I am a democrat who believed the vote should be respected, therefore I voted for the blonde buffoon.

You are just crazy if you cannot see the problems coming. There will be positives for the UK, but the long term will be the real judge, not you, or I or anyone else right now.

You really should wind it in sometimes, cos you are in danger of looking very, very silly.

 

[beorhthelm]

...Third, we prioritized principles of sovereignty over economic interests and put defensive steps protecting a theoretical concept we don’t actually want to use ahead of practical benefits. Sovereignty is a nebulous concept — as the newly-published assessment by the “Star Chamber” of the European Research Group of pro-Brexit Tories unconsciously demonstrates in distinguishing between practical and theoretical sovereignty. In any international agreement, from the NATO treaty to the Good Friday Agreement, a state limits its sovereignty, but it usually does so in return for practical benefits.

With this agreement with the EU, we have done the opposite. We have defended the theoretical possibility of doing things we don’t actually want to do, like lower our environmental standards or support failing industries, in return for giving up measures that would increase our prosperity.

i like that bit, sums up underlying problem. too late now.

 

[nicko31]

well one thing that won't change in 2021, the usual suspects will still be slaves to the right wing propaganda machine

Johnson implied yesterday that the UK is now having it’s cake and eat it, this is of course complete nonsense.

However, those that bought the first batch of snake oil back in 2016 have to carry on buying, the alternative is admit you are now a victim. That is very hard

 

[Chicken Run]

I am no supporter of Diane Abbott but is this rather vacuous, divisive comment on the right thread Mouldy? This is the Brexit thread, not Mouldy's jolly jibes.... although I am pleased to note you are concentrating on trivia again.

Tbf it is about DA not voting for the BREXIT Deal because she hasn’t read the document.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Tbf it is about DA not voting for the BREXIT Deal because she hasn’t read the document.

A document with 2000 pages passed in one day. I doubt very much if many of the MPs have actually read it. They just do what the party whips tell them to do.

There will be u turns and renegotiations for months and years to come.

[tweet]1344232433185656833[/tweet]