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Divided we squabble. The speech from the EU Brexit minister makes interesting reading. He spends much of his time rabbiting on about the consequences for the UK.

Queues of trucks at Dover. Certainly those returning from having brought goods from the EU.
Borders may be difficult. Certainly then we'll have to start shipping our international goods from the UK instead of Rotterdam.

It's going to cost us money. Well I think the answer to that will be "we'll see you in court".

It's not till right at the end of the address that you get to the meat of the issue. The EU 27 have to stand together and the UK is not to "try and divide them".

Really? Now I happen to know that it's going to take the EU27 two months just to decide how they are going to run the negotiations and to agree to allowing the EU team to carry them out under a book of rules which everyone agrees to.

However it would be utterly stupid of the UK not to use it's influence with it's major trading partners in the EU. After all, if Germany want's continued preferential access to our car market, then they're going to have to sit on the "little people" and make them swallow terms that the "little people" might not like.

In the end the very best tactic the UK can follow is to say "we're happy to leave with nothing and sort out the mess afterwards if you can't agree, but we're willing to listen to what you propose". Then spend the next 12 months saying "no we don't like that and won't accept it, try again".

Just as the EU has done to us for the last 40 odd years.

I take some comfort in the fact that the UK is doing exactly that. We don't need to influence the individual countries of the EU. We just need to keep rejecting their deal until the fear and the pressure of "no deal" finally breaks through on the EU side and the major EU players step in and take over.

The EU is really, really, scared over this one. They export a very large chunk of goods to the 5th largest economy in the world. They do more trade with the UK than they do with the US. This is not something you just blindly give up.

On the other hand the UK has been on a track of trading with the rest of the world for decades now, to the point that only 42% of our exports go to the EU. A trend I expect to accelerate in the next two years. It would be best, 12 months from now, if that balance was more around 30% of exports to the EU. It would give us a far stronger negotiating stance.

Let's face it. If you were intending to expand into International business in the next 12 months, would you choose the EU? If you were an existing business who exported to the EU, would you be looking to strengthen it or would you be looking outside the EU in the next 12 months?

I smell fear. It's not coming from the UK government. The wolves are closing and the prey is disorganised, decadent and divided.

It's certainly the best game in town. The Trump show is no comparison.

Europe is in a very dangerous situation at the moment. Expect further waves of migrants and refugees being unleashed from Turkey. Expect Putin to continue to loom over the Eastern European countries.

The EU needs to keep us onside, not just over trade but also over security, defence and intelligence. I hope they realise that when they start playing hardball ....

The UK and the US have been the greatest contributors to EU peace and security since the end of WWII.

Right now the EU is doing it's damndest to alienate both of us.

Foot, aim, shoot. Reload and repeat as many times as necessary.

Breaking news: Politician tells truth!

Michel Barnier responds to PM’s claim she would be willing to walk away from talks by saying repercussions would be serious.

Really? He said that? What was he expected to say?

"Sob, If Mrs May walks away we 27 will slope off and sulk, but I warn you this: When we come back we will be united and agree to everything she wants."

Reality is that the EU is going to negotiate hard and all this 'our widgets are better than their widgets and they need our wotsits more than we need theirs' is all froth in an attempt to talk our position up. Anyone who thinks that they will fold after the first round of cards being played ought to stick to Snap!.

I'll reply to that when I am at my computer.

Workingman wrote:Reality is that the EU is going to negotiate hard and all this 'our widgets are better than their widgets and they need our wotsits more than we need theirs' is all froth in an attempt to talk our position up. Anyone who thinks that they will fold after the first round of cards being played ought to stick to Snap!.

Let me give you a view from the other side. Friend of ours buys Citroen cars because his father bought Citroen cars. He would never buy other than French and just goes to his dealer to find out what the price is for the next new car when he wants one.

Contrast the UK. Where brand loyalty is a thing long of the past. Where if you buy a car you know it's not a UK company that makes it even if it is UK people who might actually make it. You know the money is, eventually, not going to the UK economy as the company headquarters are not in the UK.

So British people check prices, features and deals to see what is available.

People in the EU have brand awareness for virtually 0 UK products. Whisky being the most prominent. What they buy they don't know that they buy and what they buy is only sold to them because they either can't get it elsewhere in the EU or can't get it much cheaper. Mainly the former.

So when we contrast the two situations, the major suppliers to the UK, from the EU, are massively at risk of price competition. The major suppliers from the UK to the EU are far less at risk.

What this comes down to, in the end, is that, when the chips are down and if the UK stands firm, then Germany, France, Spain and Italy will step in and force the issue if their economies are going to take a serious; hit with UK consumers taking US and other international goods instead of EU goods.

Barnier is running a HUGE HUGE bluff and the very end of his speech validates that. He calls for unity. Forget it. When the UK keeps coming to the table and saying that the UK is quite happy with what it will get, for 42% of it's exports (or maybe less by then), the large exporters to the UK will start to become restless. Restlessness will turn into panic and panic will turn into action.

If anyone, for one second, thinks that Germany is going to take a €60bn hit on it's exports just because Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Romania and Hungary have their nose out of joint over field workers coming to the UK, they can think again. In the worst case France and Germany will demand that those countries fill the gap by paying circa €100bn, every year, into the pot so that France and Germany can mitigate the lost sales to it's businesses.

Talk about a "Brexit Bill"? The little men are going to face a massive Brexit Bill and it won't be the UK.

Barniers Speech? A very unsubtle attempt to allay rampant fear which will play right into the hands of the UK.

The absolute and very worst thing that can happen is that the UK caves in to this craven attempt to influence the people of the UK with a sum that is less than the annual reduction in budget deficit created by two Conservative led governments.

Lest people forget, the budget deficit when Cameron and Osborne took over was £160bn, to be paid _every_ _single_ _year_ unless reduced. Today it stands well under £100bn and is still reducing.

€50bn? Pocket change. But there is no point in paying it because like all blackmailers, if you pay they will keep coming back forever. If they want to go to court then let them. If they go to court and we lose, the sum is €50 bn. We can afford it and the courts will have ruled that this is our absolute and complete commitment to the EU on exit. They won't be able to demand a penny more.

Long may the UK stance of "we're happy with no deal" continue.

Suff, you miss the point I am making.

In order to be 'helpful' following Brexit the BBC website set up 'Brexit: all you need to know', Sky saved ink by just having 'Brexit' in its own section.

Those pages are now stagnant. All of the possibilities have been raked over ad infinitum to the point where people have turned off. Jane in the flower shop, Mick the bricklayer and Peter the artisanal baker know that they cannot change anything, so they no longer care.

Brexit will be what Brexit will be despite all the 'what ifs', 'maybes', 'my dad is bigger than your dad', 'we will do them more damage than they will do us'. It has become the 'borefest' of all borefests for the ordinary person and it is not surprising.

It should be quite straightforward. We voted out. I see Richard Branson is bleating again for a second referendum. The remoaners should accept this now.

medsec222 wrote:It should be quite straightforward. We voted out. I see Richard Branson is bleating again for a second referendum.

Exacly, Meds, and that is what I am on about.

The other day it was May, then Tusk, yesterday it was Juncker, Heseltine, Adler (BBC) and the fashion industry....And it was all raking over the same old coals....

They put up arguments for this and examples for that, with charts, graphs, percentages, personal opinion backed up by expert opinion and powerpoint presentations. They have no sooner shut up than the other side steams in with exactly the opposite arguments, examples, charts...............

The thing is that they cannot both be right. And it does not matter one iota who is right or wrong or whether we agree with them or not - we can do sod all to change the outcome. We can talk up or talk down one side or the other till we are blue in the face, but for all the effect we will have we might as well pi55 into the wind.

I don't care now Frank whatever they are saying. For me it was always about sovereignty. At least we can change our own Government every four years but we are stuck with the pillocks leading the EU. There may have been a few U turns by government recently, but a least it shows opinion can make a difference. We don't have to take what is dished out to us.