Vocal Voices

between the Brussels Beltway and Planet London.

Well I never. Who would have guessed. Brussels wants Cameron to set out his "terms" and Brussels wants him to surrender on those terms. Cameron wants to set out goals and aims and get Brussels to tell him what they offer.

Sadly the best and most accurate comment, in the whole article, was.

“People have underestimated the risks of this coming to a head. If they think it’s easily soluble, they’re wrong.”

Basically this person is British and is taking a shot at Brussels. Brussels wants Cameron to set out what they see as a "shopping list". They then believe that the position of Brussels is to go down that shopping list and decide what they want to give of it (if anything) and what they will not. They then believe if they align the correct governments, beat up those who are weaker to give the parts they do want to give up, then they can face the UK with an ultimatum and sit back, job done.

What these idiots have no clue about is that the day Cameron puts out a list, it will be the very _least_ that he can get away with and still recommend the UK stays in the EU. Every Single One of those _demands_ on that list will be exactly that, demands. Nothing will be negotiable, nothing will be there to discuss. The day a list is delivered to Brussels will be the day Cameron says "Stand and deliver".

I'm going to watch this with a certain amount of relish over the coming year or two. There are going to be a lot of people with their trousers down. There are going to be a lot of upset people and Brussels is going to get, I believe, a serious shock. Right now everyone outside Planet London thinks it's BAU (Business as Usual) and they can go on twisting arms over the immigration issue and stonewalling and bribing and bare faced lying to get what they want.

Brussels is not clued in that the UK press, for the first time, is closely shadowing what the EU is doing over the immigration crisis. It is the #1 issue in the UK and the #1 driver for the Out camp. Yet the EU is acting as if they can do what they want when they want. They even believe that giving Cameron an out on taking any of the 120,000 formula will convince the people in the UK that this is a good thing.

I wonder if those in Brussels could get into the psyche of the British people, their ability to project into the situation of the others and their ability to ask themselves what they would vote in that situation; whether they would understand the spectre of the UK on the cusp of an in out referendum, watching the EU play it's games?????

Personally I hope they don't. Personally I hope they keep Cameron on a 1 sentence, last agenda item, till 2017.

Because I believe that a Brexit and the following analysis of the reasons for doing so would be very healthy for the EU. Even if it did start to break it up much more.

I do not see what the big deal is.

The EU cannot deal with the UK's demands unless it knows what they are in some detail.

Cameron's problems are of his own making. He is a dead PM walking due to his announcement that he would not be standing as leader again. He has a shopping list of demands that he will not clarify, but ones that if he gets no concessions from the EU mean that he will not be able to support the 'In' campaign. That's fine, he can remain neutral. The people of the UK are going to be given plenty of arguments for staying in or getting out without Cameron telling them what to do. He knows full well that if he storms in demanding this, that and the other he will be shown the door. He has made these rods for his own back and will now have to live with them.

There has to be a shopping list of demands. And within that shopping list, there has to be a bottom line. The former must be published for any semblance of negotiations to begin, and there has to be a dialogue, even if the response from Brussels is simply two words.

I can understand the British side not pushing forward the agenda whilst the current furore over immigration has been the major topic concentrating minds in Europe, but the process must be started sometime. I know that to the EU, we Brits are an unwelcome sideshow, but the issue of renegotiation or Brexit has to be dealt with.

I think Cameron is not pushing it because he wants the smallest possible time slot for discussion, both with the EU and in public.

Sometime next year .....

"Here's the list, you've got 5 days to negotiate"
"Sacre bleu!"
"OK, fine, I'll take that as a no, then. We'll vote next week, and if we go, it's all your fault ....."

This is true, the EU can't do much of anything concrete until the UK tenders it's list of demands.

However, in general terms, the EU could have started engaging with the overtures which the UK has already put out. In fact the only engagement they have done is to trot out "which part of NON do you not understand?"

In that scenario, Cameron's demands have become a matter of timing. The EU may be frustrated that they are not getting something which they can solidly deal with. But then again they are the architects of their own frustration. They played to the rest of the EU when Cameron made his statements. Now they're going to have to live with that. If they had shown even the slightest sign of a slight inclination, to a slight possibility of a slight chance, that they might have listened to what Cameron had to say with a mildly favourable ear, they would have their list of requirements now.

However, as the "organs" of the EU have shown over the last few years, the only reality they recognise is the lala fairytale land which they make up for themselves. Anything which does not fit into lala land is rejected. This has become clearer and clearer. Also the fact that Merkel is the boss of lala land has also become very clear.

So they are the architects of their own frustration. Cameron will continue to reiterate his "areas of concern". The EU will continue to reiterate that he has no chance of getting it before 2020. So Cameron will submit his "demands" at a point in time when there is no option but to decide. There will be no spin time, no control time, no grandstanding time and absolutely no time to gather together in corners like scurrying rats and plot the downfall of Cameron so that they can keep the UK in the EU....

But,

Erm,

Cameron is firmly on the side of IN. He's on record as saying that there are things wrong and that they need to be fixed but that he believes the UK belongs in a fixed EU.

So what message can they send when they tear down Cameron and go to the people of the UK and say....... What exactly? Stay, we want you, we love you, but ONLY ON OUR OWN TERMS....

Great message. The only message which could damage their cause more would be "Stay or we'll destroy you". Yep that'll play well with the people who want out, they'll read that for what it is. "Stay or we'll destroy you, stay and we'll destroy you like Greece".

The EU might want to consider very recent history.

In the Scottish Referendum, the NO campaign led all the way except for one poll. Yes the undecided were a factor and could have swung it, but as the undecided's got off the fence and eased their crotch, they fell pretty much exactly in the same split as it was before.

So, where do we stand in the EU debate? Exactly the opposite. Out are leading and In are well behind. Undecided is a bit bigger but, then, in England at least, many of the undecided simply won't vote. They are nothing like as motivated about the EU as the Scots were about the Union. Whatever is decided come 2017, the UK will still be the UK, unlike the decision the Scots made in 2014.

So, my take is this. Go for it EU. Be frustrated, get annoyed that we won't say exactly what we want in detail so that you can tell us, for the next 2 years, why we can't have it. Go tell us we're some insignificant 28th of the EU and that we can't have what we want.

Because when we leave and the EU loses it's second largest economy and it's second permanent seat on the UN security council, the EU will know exactly what it lost and the EU reality will be a much harder and much more bitter taste than the UK reality...

The thing everybody seems to be forgetting is that it is not for the EU, Cameron, the Conservatives, Labour, the CBI, multiple Think Tanks or Uncle Tom Cobley et al to decide.

There is to be a referendum. We, the people of the UK, will decide. That is it.

All these others can play politics till the cows come home, but if we decide the answer is 'X' then 'X' it will be.

Yep and how they deal with the situation will be key to how our pressure groups play the in/out card.

If the EU take cards away from the IN camp, they are giving freebies to the Out camp.

Yes the people of the UK will decide. But they will not do it in a vacuum. So it does matter what Cameron and the EU do. It matters very much.

Just as I said that Labour and the Lib Dems would pay a very heavy price in Scotland for fear mongering about the economy, Cameron and the EU will pay the price of disingenuous activity before the EU vote.

All good dirty political infighting. Open for the public to see if they want to.

Suff, the details might be important to people like us, but for Sharon and Tracy, Justin and Toby...?

I am convinced that they will be persuaded by the hype, the luvvies and the lawyers, and they will hold the day.

Sad, but that is how things work.

I guess that depends on whether the out campaign has learned from the Scottish yes campaign run by the SNP and the following election.

It would be ironic, don't you think, that that same tactics which failed to elicit a referendum Yes might be used to gain and EU out against the wishes of the SNP????

That would certainly put a smile on my face to see Sturgeon so unamused....