The pincer movement.

[Workingman]

Or the Visegrad (V4) group.

A group of Central European EU members known as the Visegrad Four is ready to veto any Brexit deal that would limit people's right to work in the UK, Slovakian PM Robert Fico says.

If that threat is carried out the UK and the EU are caught in a trap.

The EU will not be able to do a deal with the UK over access to the single market unless the free movement of EU citizens, i.e. no immigration control, is allowed by the UK.

The UK will not be able to deliver the main thrust of Brexit to the people, immigration control, because if it does it will lose access to the single market.

It will be interesting to see who blinks first. My bet is the UK.

[Suff]

My bet isn't. My bet is that in the next 2 years the balance of trade with the EU will change again to around 80:20 in the favour of the EU and that UK companies will start to trade away from the EU in preparation for our emergence into the world markets.

In that case what would we have to lose? Also the EU could be forced into giving us the banking licenses we require by threatening their 100bn trade they do with the UK.

In that case the Visegrad could find themselves in a position of having hammered Germany and France into giving concessions to the UK in order to protect their trade whilst the Visegrad get nothing but the cold shoulder from the older EU nations.

All we have to do is act sensibly in business terms and hold fast. This will become apparent as time goes on.

I'm reading articles where news is leaking out of Brussels that they believe that being tough and hard nosed will force the UK to quite Brexit and remain in the EU. I've said for two decades now that the EU has no clue how the UK works and this just goes to show it. The EU has more chance of the UK sailing off into the sunset with no deal than the UK remaining in the EU.

If Brussels don't get some common sense going, they might wind up holding the brown sticky end of the stick. The EU might be forced to move production of those goods they sell to us into the UK itself. Then, using the EU precedent of demanding taxes for any goods sold in the EU, the UK could force those EU companies to pay full company tax on all profits created in the UK.

Today they're all acting like the UK has no choice and they can say what they want.

That's going to change over time. These starting positions are going to have to move and the hardest positions are going to be the most difficult to step away from and with the largest loss of face.

It's been nearly 3 months rather than 18 months. Negotiations have not even started because the EU refuses to even talk to the UK yet EU member states are already threatening to Veto.

Just as well we are leaving then.

[Workingman]

Oh, come on.

The UK has to work with the EU, it has no choice.

The EU's GDP is about €16.2 trillion, according to the IMF. That makes it the largest economy in the world if treated like the economy of a single country.

Are we going to forego that market to control immigration, are we hell. Yes, we might make bilateral trade deals outside the EU, but we are never, ever, going to lose the EU market, that would be suicide.

At the moment the EU cannot bend because of the Visegrad position, and that looks set in stone, but we can move if we have to. I expect that we will fold and that all we will get is Brexit lite.

[Suff]

Ah let's back up on the figures a bit. Using the € is never a good way to compare GDP.

Today, 2016, the EU is $16.5tn and the US is $18.5tn according to the World Bank.

However we also have to factor in that the UK, in the EU is $2.8tn which brings the EU down to $13.7tn, which we will be negotiating with. China currently sits at 11.4tn, just below the EU without the UK and China is currently growing about 5 times faster than the EU.

Now the real situation. World GDP is $74tn and the UK does 52% of it's export business with the rest of the world and only 48% with the EU. Unshackled by the EU limits which currently make it more difficult for the UK to do business with the rest of the world, that % trade will change rapidly and radically.

So the reality is this. The EU needs the UK one HELL of a lot more than the UK needs the EU. If the Visegrad want to hobble the EU, that will just make the UK transition to extra EU trade that much faster. Yes it will hurt us but we'll come out the other side a lot stronger and a lot leaner and growing faster.

The EU on the other hand will lose €100bn of trade with the UK (or a large proportion of it), which won't be replaced anywhere else in the world. When we're able to get the same products for less cost in the UK there is no way we're going to take them from the EU. As for Cars and other products currently produced in the EU and sold over to the UK, there is no way Mercedes and Audi are going to suffer 25% to 30% tariffs to ship them to the UK when they can manufacture them in the UK and sell them in the UK (one of the most lucrative car markets in the EU), at a much smaller cost tariff.

Which is good for the UK and bad for the EU.

All we have to do is hold fast and take the reality to the EU and the British people. If we panic we'll be raped economically and that was not the idea behind leaving.

Once the idea of infinite opportunity finally takes hold all this fear should wither away and when that happens, the EU is going to be standing there with their trousers down and a busted flush.....