The FT is doing a very good job of showcasing Brexit

[Suff]

As we can see in this second article.

It's always worth taking a very hard look at what the EU is saying. Not hard for me, I knew this months before the vote was ever taken simply listening to the rhetoric coming from the EU establishment. It was hard to determine which was the largest motivator of those pre Referendum statements... Overconfidence, Arrogance or Abject Fear.

Reading that article gives you a very, very good view of how this process is going to run. With 27 countries the EU has to "defend" their principles. The framework under which negotiations will be carried out will be set long before the first meeting, no variation will be allowed, the negotiator will be hugely constrained and the European Council QMV at the end will be heavily dependent on countries who have huge benefit in sending labour to the UK, not on the relatively few countries who do massive trade surpluses with the UK. This is before the EU Parliament even gets a sniff of what has been agreed.

Tusk is absolutely right when he says

the only real alternative to a “hard Brexit” is “no Brexit”

As Brexit is going to happen, it's going to be hard and everyone needs to just get on with it and make the best of it.

[Workingman]

Of course you work with the EU. All of this 'my dad is bigger than your dad', 'you need us more than we need you' primary playground stuff is pathetic. It helps nobody and is pointless, absolutely pointless.

We are going to work with the EU over an agreement because it helps both sides. All this froth and talking up our position is just white noise to cover the fact that they are in a stronger negotiating position than we are.

Make no mistake, we are the junior partners in these negotiations and when push comes to shove the other 27 will bind together to deal with us. The separate entities might all have their own slightly different agendas, but all the time we keep bleating, jumping up and down and spitting our dummy just gives them more opportunities to pull together.

It is long past the time for both sides to get on with things rather than winding each other up via their favoured and compliant media outlets. I, for one, am sick of all the pontificating that I cannot influence one iota, but on the plus side there are only 23 more months of the pantomime to live through before the house of cards collapses and we all start again.

[Suff]

From my perspective it’s not really a question of “working with” the EU. In order to create an environment where the EU Can actually start negotiations, they first need to bind the 27 states into a straightjacket with virtually no room for manoeuvre. As a consequence they also bind themselves into a situation where it is virtually impossible for them to even begin to negotiate with the UK. If the EU does anything other than raise a list of _demands_ I’ll be incredibly surprised.

What the EU will find is that when the UK is backed into a corner, the UK can play just as much hardball as the EU.

Let’s face facts and not hysteria or conjecture. The Budget of the EU is in far more danger than the Budget of the UK from a hard Brexit where UK consumers walk away from EU goods.

Simply put, the UK can easily trade outside the EU where it, today, trades with the EU. The EU, on the other hand, only trades with the UK because it can’t do the same trade outside, or even inside the EU. Those countries which support the EU Budget are at the highest risk of loss of GDP from Hard Brexit. When those countries lose GDP, the EU loses budget.

I see the EU stolidly marching off a cliff and attempting to take us with it, all for a bit of solidarity.

Let us also face another fact here. The EU cannot. Let me reiterate CAN NOT, allow soft Brexit or even any kind of trade deal once the UK leaves the EU. If they do, then the EU will be finished in a quarter century.

So let’s not talk as if we’re going to negotiate anything with the EU except over the barrel of a gun. Because we’re not. The EU is not seeking a mandate to negotiate, it is seeking a mandate to dictate and seeking the power to enforce that dictat, no matter what it costs any of the EU27.

It’s high time we started an export trade development fund, started posting the details of our trade negotiations with other countries and, as they appear, documenting the trade deals wich will be signed, one minute after the Brexit 2 years ends.

This is the only position that the EU will understand. You can’t dictate and if you want to lose; then we’re happy to help you lose.

In that scenario, Westminster has 1/100th of the work that the EU has to do and it will not take us 9 months to do it either.

[Workingman]

Suff, for the purpose of debate let us assume that everything you say is correct. I do not agree, but let us play the game. There is nothing you or I or any of us can do to alter, change, modify or amend anything: we are powerless. The EU will act the way the EU will act, and so will the UK. As far as they are concerned we can go sit on one, as can our media, correspondents and experts.

The same is true for Hanniveg, Dieter, Jaques, Sonia and all their continental cousins. They can join us and rant and rave till they're blue in the face and still nothing will change.

Even the upcoming elections in the EU's three most powerful economies are not going to change the way the EU and UK deal with Brexit. We are entering a period where a handful of politicians on both sides of the table are going to decide the future for 500m people in Europe, and many more globally.

We on the outside can quote reams of figures for this and percentages for that and tariffs and trade deals, and all it is is hot air. The only way we can now change anything is if millions of us throughout Europe take to the streets, and that is not going to happen because we are divided. I am not going to join your march because I disagree with your argument, and you will not join mine for the same reason.

Basically: we are screwed.

[Suff]

Basically: we are screwed.

Not really. We are not screwed, well not totally. But the ball is in our court. The EU is going to be unreasonable, it has to or it won't survive. So we also need to be unreasonable back because if we are not we absolutely _will_ be screwed on the altar of EU unity.

In negotiations with the EU there is one golden rule. Never, ever, let them get the upper hand.

The UK's best stance is to say "great, see you in 2 years whilst we get on with our life out of the EU. Oh and if you want to take your institutions back, great, get on with it and let us know when it's done".

Anything else, absolutely anything, is then open for negotiation but only if WE want to do it. Because and this has to be clear, the treaties and every obligation negotiated under them, cease to function in March 2019. Sayonara €50bn.

If we take that position and plan for that position and support our economy to take that position; then we can at least make some concessions. If we don't we most certainly will be screwed. Up, down and sideways.

[Workingman]

Basically: we are screwed.

Not really. We are not screwed, well not totally.

Sorry, I was not clear.

I meant that we ordinary people are screwed.

We are at the mercy of the elite's chosen representatives. They will decide what is good for us, the dose, and how often we take it.

Bend over.

[Suff]

Where did I put my lubricant....