Time to take a step back on Brexit?

[Suff]

Looking at the news today, with the Danish minister moving full circle from "the UK doesn't realise it is a little country", to "The EU needs to start negotiating and not stalling", to the BBC having to choke on ire and report what Leave is saying; namely that it is now the EU which is stonewalling and not negotiating; I believe it's time to up the game.

Davis, in my estimation, now needs to come to the table this month and tell the EU that the UK has moved. If this is a negotiation, the EU now has to make a move too. If the EU does not make a move then the UK will walk away from the table and go full bore on total separation with no deal.

Until, that is, the EU gets down of it's high horse and starts negotiation.

Leave for a few months to simmer and the EU 27 to start bitching and backbiting about it. Then the UK can, kindly, come back to the table and talk negotiations.

Leaving the EU to justify it's "Negotiating position" of not negotiating at all.

Anything else is simple capitulation and that is the very worst thing the UK can do.

It will be interesting to see if the UK team has the gonads to do what needs to be done.

[cromwell]

I'm a bit sad about it all. Maybe what you recommend is necessary Suff. But the EU could have been so much more than it is. If it had just been a group of nations getting along together and looking after each other, no problem. But like the UN, the EU morphed into something else. Not a group of nations but a separate organisation sitting above the group of nations, and with power going to their heads.

[medsec222]

The European Commission has now responded that 'the ball is in the UK's Court'. It is ridiculous with the clock ticking, that both sides cannot get down to business and discuss all issues not just how much the UK needs to pay for negotiations to start. Perhaps Theresa May should kick the ball into touch and we should 'drop off the edge of the cliff' as the remainers fear. My fear is that we will throw good money after bad and eventually end up worse off.

[Workingman]

From the moment Cameron announced the referendum, Sat, 20 February 2016, the EU has been perfectly clear on its stance and what it required from the UK. It made its position known, to anybody who wanted to listen, all the way up to the date of the referendum itself.It was not hidden from anybody and it was not the opinion of some "experts" or an invention of Project Fear. It was fact.

The EU has not budged one inch from that time because it had no need to.

It's a bit bloody rich for Brexiteers to now complain about the EU's intransigence and for them to "demand" an explanation of its "Negotiating position". You lot put us where we are today. Stop bleating and trying to parry the blame on to others and take ownership of the mess we find ourselves in.

[Suff]

Ah, so this is not a "Negotiation" then. Thanks for that.

So the Remoaner press need to shut up about the Tories being "Bad Negotiators" because there is nothing to negotiate.

All we need to do now is resolve the issue as to whether we want to accept the EU "Immovable position" or not.

If the answer is no, then we stop all talks and start working on our relationship with the rest of the world.

If, however, the EU finds that it's position is NOT immovable, then we'll be willing to listen to their changed position and decide whether it is "sufficient progress" for us to start talking with them again.

Simple.

All it takes is a little backbone and for the Remoaner press to stop lying about it (which, to be fair, is starting to creep into every Remoaner article these days).

[AliasAggers]

I still think we should have been much more positive in dealing with this matter.

If I was in charge, there would be no negotiating. I would just say, "We are leaving
the E.U. forthwith, and paying you nothing. If you don't like it you can lump it".

We are not frightened of the E.U. are we?
We can get on quite well on our own, can't we?

If they want to play awkward, so be it. We can survive without them, I'm sure.
We have many friend outside Europe.

We need someone like Churchill - or even Trump.

I think our present politicians are a useless lot.

[TheOstrich]

You lot put us where we are today. Stop bleating and trying to parry the blame on to others and take ownership of the mess we find ourselves in.

I'm not bleating. I want out of the EU and if it takes a Hard Brexit, so be it. I have no illusions that the EU will do us any favours, and quite honestly neither should we give them any favours.

Taking Security off the negotiating table, as they did a few weeks back, was a crass mistake.

[Kaz]

From the moment Cameron announced the referendum, Sat, 20 February 2016, the EU has been perfectly clear on its stance and what it required from the UK. It made its position known, to anybody who wanted to listen, all the way up to the date of the referendum itself.It was not hidden from anybody and it was not the opinion of some "experts" or an invention of Project Fear. It was fact.

The EU has not budged one inch from that time because it had no need to.

It's a bit bloody rich for Brexiteers to now complain about the EU's intransigence and for them to "demand" an explanation of its "Negotiating position". You lot put us where we are today. Stop bleating and trying to parry the blame on to others and take ownership of the mess we find ourselves in.

Hear bloody hear!!!!!!

[cromwell]

The position is made worse by a lack of trust on both sides, imo.

On the one hand the EU doesn't trust us to pay up our dues.

On the other we probably think that that order of play leaves a lot to be desired. Namely that by insisting on settling up the UK's debt before trade talks start, there is nothing to stop the EU taking us to the cleaners before saying "Sorry, no trade deal".

I realise this is a suspicious and pessimistic view, but I'm sure it's crossed other people's minds as well.

[Suff]

I don't know how much worse the relationship can become??

The EU ministers talking about "punishing" the UK for daring to leave?? It doesn't get much worse than that and that was before we voted to Leave. In fact the only thing that we can trust the EU to do is to try and shaft us.

As for our dues?? The press refused to give the space to the fact that the UK dissected the EU demands under a legal spotlight and revealed that there is no legal statute or precedent for 90% of their demands.

As for the UK, why should they not trust us to deliver on our word? They have been abusing that trust for decades..