Even the FT is beginning to change the rhetoric

[Suff]

On Brexit

The reason why I expect a deal to be struck is that interests are aligned. The EU needs Britain’s money. Neither Germany nor France are politically in a position to provide additional finance to cover the UK’s liabilities. Nor is there any legal certainty that the EU could win a case against the UK under international law.

Now if you replace "liabilities" with "member contributions", that is the truest statement of affairs I have seen the FT make since Cameron called the referendum. I can only assume that the truly appalling behaviour of Junker is beginning to filter through into letters to the Editor. A month ago this article would have never made it through editorial scrutiny.

[Workingman]

Cannot read the whole thing as it is behind a pay wall, so it is hard to comment.

It is even harder when the author is not known. It would be interesting to have a peep at their history regarding all things Brexit.

Not that it really matters. It is only an opinion and no more worthy of consideration than any of ours. No doubt there will be an opposite opinion to challenge it in one of the Remoaning papers in the morning - that is if they can be bothered to be bothered.

[Suff]

I should have put in the Google link. I just learned about their click through policy.

Essentially the FT has been solid Project Fear. That is now starting to change with the intransigent stance of the EU.

It will be interesting to watch for further changes over the next few months.

[Workingman]

I float around commentators from the semi-pros to journos from broadcast and press media to basic political blogs.

From what I see is that for every commentator there is an opinion, and they change or flip-flop almost by the hour. They go from Granite (rock hard) Brexit it to Camembert (soft and runny with a putrid stench) Brexit.

At any particular moment nobody has a clue what sort of Brexit is on offer so they talk up their favourite version and talk down everything else.

Having said that it does now look like we are heading more for a hard Brexit than anything else, and whether we like it or not we are having to take it on board. That does not mean that we should stop trying for deal fair to both sides, but we do have to accept that it is more than likely slipping away.

[Suff]

Yes I've noticed the swinging backwards and forwards. However I've also noticed that the FT has had a fairly strong editorial line on that, not allowing any of the hard brexit style articles and virtually 95% of the time talking down the economy, business impact and everything else in terms of requiring a soft brexit.

Personally, from my perspective, I never expected anything else than hard brexit. Essentially because the Commission is flexing it's muscles and has bound the states into a "suicide pact" to try and derail the UK from fragmenting EU opinion. The 27 states are still following that line as they have been guaranteed that if they all hold firm the UK _MUST_ cave and then they'll get anything they want.

Pity they didn't assess the political realities of that approach in the UK. No party that allows the EU to walk all over the UK will survive the fall out at the next election. Everyone knows that, no matter what they are saying today.

It will be far too late when the 27 states realise that this approach is not working, that the UK is not going to simply keep on paying into all the EU schemes for the next 10 years and that UK borders are going back up to EU citizens; one way or another. Simply because it will be a bigger impact to businesses, driven to make provision for hard brexit due to EU intransigence and UK unwillingness to just surrender, to go for soft brexit late in the day; than it will be to just be British and tell the EU to shove it where the Sun don't shine.

The Commission never had any intention of negotiating any more than the ECB did with the PIIGS. It worked once, why shouldn't it work again??? Perhaps because the PIIGS, economically speaking, were far less valuable to the EU than the UK, something that the Commission should have factored in. Which is quite a big thing given that the GDP of the PIIGS is larger than Germany, let alone the UK.

I saw the mushy statements which came out of the May/Juncker meeting last night. That, to me, means no change in the status quo.

So, I wonder, does the Tory Government have the sheer Chutzpa to do what needs to be done. Simply put, if the EU council meeting, this week, demands more progress before they allow Barnier to talk about trade; then the UK walks away from the table and tells the EU they'll come back when they talk about trade. The UK can then, unilaterally, tell the EU what it is going to do about funding and the NI border and telling the EU that the UK will reciprocate on ANY decision made for UK citizens in the EU, for EU citizens in the UK.

We'll see. Unilaterally setting conditions for the NI border is an interesting one. Because if we decide to keep it open, but the EU is not happy with how, then the EU will have to deploy it's border force to enforce a different solution; thereby endangering the Good Friday agreement themselves in total opposition to their stated aims.

There is a lot the UK can do to change this situation. Wringing it's hands and begging for "largesse" is not one of them. Greece proved that fairly comprehensively to everyone involved.

[cromwell]

That is my fear. That we will just cave in and get the worst of all worlds. The EU is under no obligation to be nice to us and if we just go cap in hand we will get a pasting. What might save us is political ambition. M. Barnier has much to lose. If he delivers a poor deal for the EU it won't do his political future much good. Hopefully realising that both sides could end up being badly hurt will concentrate minds.

[Suff]

The problem is that the EU still thinks that only the UK can be hurt if there is no deal.

It will take a while yet before that one filters through.