When I listen to Merkel, I wonder just who is

[Suff]

Delusional?

Personally I think it is long past time for a change in words,

The EU is constantly harping on about a better deal FROM the EU.

Sorry Frau Merkel, the terminology is incorrect. Brexiteers want a better deal THAN the EU.

Let's face facts.

Free market? Only use a small part of it. 42% (correctly calculated), of our exports
Open borders? Don't use it
Common currency? Don't use it
Free movement of people? Yes, we use it, to import large numbers of cheap workers. But the other way around? There are regulations on top of regulations to deter UK citizens from easily going to another EU country. This I know very, very, well. The UK and Ireland have simple and easy regulations in this respect.

In terms of trading and trade balance, of the top 49 importers to the UK, the UK only has a trade surplus with _one_ EU country. Would it surprise you to know that that country is Greece? We have the same trade balance with Germany that we do with China! WE have a $10bn trade surplus with America for god's sake.

We don't want a better deal than the one we have in the EU. We don't even want as _good_ a deal as we had in the EU. What we want is to emerge from the EU and make our way in the world. In the process we want to limit the damage of that exit as much as possible. Both for the UK AND the EU because we're actually sensible people who see no reason to go crazy over leaving and trash the whole world.

The rhetoric coming out of the EU smells massively of fear. Germany has €60bn of exports to the UK at stake. Yes we have €30bn of exports to Germany at stake too. But, this is the point. What we export to Germany is in demand all over the world. Outside of the EU, we can avoid the reciprocal barriers which have been raised due to EU protectionism. The next 2 years gives us the opportunity to negotiate to sell those goods and services to the rest of the world.

Let me ask a simple question. Would you pay 35% (or perhaps even 10%), more for your Audi, Volksagen, Skoda, Seat? Because VAG, after their lies and perfidy, are in really serious trouble. The vast majority of the €60bn in exports from Germany to the UK are cars and the largest portion of that trade is VAG. Will our businesses pay 35% more to get Scania, Vovlo, MAN, Mercedes trucks? Or will they look to other countries to fill that gap? Oh yes, the Scandinavian truck manufacturer's are owned by German companies and their exports go to German GDP, not Swedish.

So Frau Merkel, when are you going to realise that the EU rhetoric could, quite easily, kill VAG, currently sitting on it's sick bed.

Merkel might actually want to be asking "what do you need" and trying to work out how to spin that as a significant reduction in the "deal" that the UK gets from the EU, without actually changing our relationship with the EU, in terms of trade, one little bit.

Food for thought!

Also think this one through. GM got out of Opel and Vauxhall because of the poor performance of Opel in Germany, not the poor performance of Vauxhall in the UK. The sweetener for PSA was Vauxhall because it will give them a manufacturing base in the UK to sell their other cars which they currently export. Of course if things go really badly, they can get rid of Vauxhall workers more easily than Opel one's in Germany, but, think, if they're keeping some €30bn in trade alive via Vauxhall, that's a lot of money to sort out Opel.

There is a highly massaged message going on here which lends itself to both the French elections and the German elections. It is, however, very far from the truth.

About time our government called the bluff.

[Workingman]

News from Reuters is that the 27 will sign off the guidelines published on the 31st of March.

"All delegations agree with the overall thrust of the guidelines and express their full support. The main elements of the guidelines were achieving a fair and equitable result for all member states and maintaining unity and trust within the 27."

They are ready to go from the 10th of June but they are giving Mother Theresa a day to get comfortable back in Number 10. Good people those EUropeans.

I am going to have to get myself something to do for the next 22 months. It is hard enough trying to avoid the damned election, God knows what it will be like trying to avoid all the pontificating over this Brexit deal, that Brexit no-deal, who is right, who is wrong, what we should do, what they cannot do. I already have Brexit fatigue and it can only get worse.

I might go on the Internet and see if there are any decent and remote caves up for rent.

[Suff]

I might go on the Internet and see if there are any decent and remote caves up for rent.

With Wifi no doubt....

It isn't going to go away and we might as well surf it just like the net. There are valid points to discuss on both sides and I just like to take a poke at the one's which annoy me the most. Mostly I'm annoyed that we, the UK, are doing what we have always done with the EU; shut up and let them talk their BS whilst making talking points around their BS. We are about to emerge fully into the International community and it's about time we started setting the agenda and getting used to setting the agenda.

As for being ready to go. Until June 10th they have nowhere to go as there will be nobody with the remit to talk to them. Good people? No, just like everything else it is the constraints laid upon them.

[Workingman]

I might go on the Internet and see if there are any decent and remote caves up for rent.

With Wifi no doubt....

And a long, long, long extension lead plugged in to the nearest lamppost for the TV, radio, heater, kettle, blanket, hot plate.......

[Suff]

And a long, long, long extension lead plugged in to the nearest lamppost for the TV, radio, heater, kettle, blanket, hot plate.......

How 20th century. No, Solar off grid of course...

[Workingman]

[Suff]

The BBC trying to be positive about Soft Brexit??

However, for the skeptics of us, they just highlight just exactly how unbalanced the relationship is even among countries like Holland and Sweden. This is without even touching on UK fishing boundaries and the impact on Italy and Spain, also Denmark and others.

I expect more of the same to leak out over time. Heading on for a Million Poles alone. 80% of Netherlands GDP is exports and 79% is trade with the EU and a HUGE chunk of that is to the UK. The Netherlands being a net contributor to the EU budget of course.

More than half a million Italians. As for France, hundreds of thousands certainly.

Granted it's not going to be a picnic for the UK citizens, especially in Spain where we have 10 times as many Brits in Spain as Spaniards in the UK.. But Spanish profits from UK take overs are good. So are German and French profits from their Utility companies, which don't get classed as exports or imports, just profits.

Hopefully as everyone works out just how much it's going to hurt, the fear factor will turn to other areas.

[Suff]

Why is it always, in the BBC news, that the really important stuff winds up in the last paragraph.

Having blathered on about the EU supporting the Good Friday agreement and skating round the fact that there would need to be positive twin referenda in Ireland to create a single state, they finally get down to the point that none of this will even be discussed until the "Brexit Bill" has been settled. Ireland is trying to say "don't get hung up on the size of the cheque", but they might as well be farting in the wind for all the notice that will be taken of that.

All this Food Friday talk and Gib talk is just that, talk. What are they going to do if the UK says "we're not paying a penny until you give us chapter and verse on what we're going to get for that money"? I would. No chance that I'd pay them one red cent until they came up with a comprehensive and detailed shopping list of what that money bought.

I have the distinct feeling that the EU is painting itself into a corner where the UK can force them to fall at the first hurdle. Do they not understand that not only is €50bn a really bad deal, it's a "no deal". May was not joking that no deal is far preferable to a bad deal.

[Workingman]

*Takes a chill pill*

The EU published its guidelines and they have been agreed between the 27 and are about to be signed off. If they are painting themselves into a corner it is entirely their business, but one thing looks clear. They are not buying into the "you need us more than we need you" fiction. They are going to look after themselves as they see fit and look prepared for a bit of pain - if necessary.

As for the UK walking away and leaving behind any €xBn bill, that is more Fantasy Island stuff and economic madness. The EU would immediately lock us out of as many areas as it legally could within the EU. We are partner to some 50 trade agreements with other countries through our membership of the EU. If we spit our dummy they would go before the door shuts. We are going to have to renegotiate our position with them anyway when we leave and I can already hear the whispers muddying the waters if we walk. "You want a deal with that country, the one that walked away from its obligations with us, your partners. You need to be careful, they cannot be trusted".

The bottom line, as I have said often enough, is that neither side can get the whole of what it wants. There will be give and take: that is what negotiating is about. There is not a single thing the FT, BBC, Daily Mail, Sky, Woman's Weekly, the Beano or the bloke down the pub can do about it. I do not see the point in getting high blood pressure over the way these news outlets are spinning whatever 'situation' crops up on any particular day. They are not part of either side's negotiating team and their opinions, for that is what they really are, are as valid, or invalid, as anyone else's: no more, no less.

[Suff]

Actually I see the media as a pressure group in this election for the interests of their political ideologies or their media.

Personally I feel that those 50 countries who trade with the EU would much rather get the UK goods under a preferential, or even free trade deal, rather than the tortuously negotiated EU deals.

I'm still waiting for someone to talk about the CETA deal. There is no way on this planet that CETA allows free movement of people. So every time anyone in the 27 or the commission or the council of ministers or the council of Europe opens their mouth and says that there can be no access to the EU markets without free movement of people...

THEY ARE LYING!

If they are lying about that, then they are sure as hell lying about the "you need us more than we need you" and all the rest of it. In fact the only truth I have been able to discern in the EU and EU 27 stance is that they need to muzzle all 27 countries and make them fall in line over the UK negotiations. That is absolutely true otherwise the EU would fall apart even faster than it is doing already.