EUpps?

[Workingman]

I think he would be a useful asset behind the scenes but he has probably too many adversaries in the EU to sit at the table.

[medsec222]

I would be more than happy with behind the scenes Frank, his expertise could be used to good effect without the fuss that the Nigel haters would kick up if he were too prominent.

[TheOstrich]

Then came the proposed terms of Great Repeal Bill, which is a good Bill. It gets rid of the European Communities Act, but in doing so it writes into UK law some 19,000 EU rules, regulations and laws, with only 1,000 or so up for change in the short term. Yes, those are the bad EU laws people keep banging on about in their Urban Myths.

This move makes good sense. A smooth transition on the day we finally leave the monolith with all existing laws being transferred onto the UK statute books, so no momentous upheaval. And then we can start to pick through these "EU regulations" and delete, amend or improve them entirely as we see fit. Unless they do it all by statutory instrument, it'll keep Parliament occupied for years!

[Suff]

Of course the EU will attempt to bind the UK into keeping all these laws by making any "deal" dependent on them.

Should we modify them in the future, the "deal" will be voided.

Best to tell them to shove it till they can come up with something sensible. When I read the terms of CETA, it was rife with protection clauses stopping anyone from buying into, or buying out, any of the state protected energy giants and clauses to protect the small inefficient EU farmers.

[cromwell]

I wonder how much the EU actually wants a deal? This clause whereby any deal reached doesn't apply to Gibraltar, that has to be agreed between the UK and Spain? 26 out of the remaining 27 EU countries don't care twopence about Gibraltar, and they are putting this roadblock in the way?

If it's going to be like this we may as well bail out now and save a lot of time.

[Workingman]

We were told many times that the EU could not do this - because; could not do that - because; could not do the other - because ... the UK held the aces and we could hurt them more than they could hurt us.

Only four days in and it looks as though we were being fed an overly optimistic version of future events, and not for the first time. Yes, it will be argued that these are opening gambits by the EU, which they probably are, and that some will be dropped or amended. However, as things stand, they look like strong openers from the side with the supposedly weakest hand.

If we are going to bail out now, bearing in mind the "No deal is better than a bad deal" then why didn't we do it on June 24th last year - nine months have been wasted. It is not as if government, the Civil service and strategists had no time to look at all the possible problems and pitfalls. If they did not see some of these things coming, or saw them but brushed them aside, then they should not be in their jobs.