When I listen to Merkel, I wonder just who is

[AliasAggers]

Frankly, I don't see the need for these seemingly endless rounds of talks and arguing with the E.U.

We just need to get out of the E.U as quickly as possible. We were tricked into joining it, anyway.
It is completely unacceptable to have un-elected foreigners poking their noses into how we run our
country, and we would never have agreed to joining the so-called "Common Market" if we had been
aware of this unspecified outcome.

As I see it, we have very little to lose by quitting, and much to gain. It is other E.U. members who
have lots to lose, and that's why they are concerned.

[medsec222]

I agree Aggers. We were told in the 70s that it was a vote to join a common market with six other European countries. It seemed a good idea at the time, as it was sold to us as anti-war and future economic prosperity. To read years later that Ted Heath knew all along it would lead to a United States of Europe is particularly galling when we examine how this trading agreement has evolved. Many of the older generation such as myself feel we were duped into voting for one thing whereas in reality, we had voted for something entirely different. Now many of the older generatiion want to leave before it becomes a reality.

[Workingman]

OK, I am giving up with this.

I have never once asked for details, negotiation wise, of May's super brilliant deal that is better than no deal. All I have asked for is an idea, an outline, an inkling, of what it might be. It does not look as though one will be forthcoming and my contention is that is the case because we do not have one.... hopefully it is still in the making, but I cannot be sure.

I have also tried to explain why simply going to WTO rules will not be as easy as many of you think. Even the groups leading the Leave campaigns in order to grab your votes to quit the EU do not like the idea. They do have some ideas regarding bilateral deals which might work, but they freely admit that some of them will be difficult, if not impossible, to negotiate.

I have also said many times that neither side can ever get 100% of what they want and that there will have to be compromises both ways. I might as well have been peeing into the wind.

I am now offering my unconditional surrender. Let's go for the 'piss everyone off' option, the: Walk away, no deal, got our sovereignty back option. I mean, if we threaten that they will come running to us with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh because they need us more than we need them. IT'S A FACT!

Pah! I'm out.

[cromwell]

I just hope both sides act fairly. After reading Varoufakis's (former Greek finance minister) memoirs, part of which have been serialised in the Daily Telegraph, I am a bit afeared that the EU is in the mood to give us a kicking for daring to leave. Juncker has apparently said "Brexit cannot be a success".

There are two sides in the negotiations and if one just wants to stick the boot in then it is going to be a hard Brexit whether we like it or not.

[TheOstrich]

There are two sides in the negotiations and if one just wants to stick the boot in then it is going to be a hard Brexit whether we like it or not.

Absolutely this. And in those circumstances, I would fully support the walk. I hope, and I'm reasonably optimistic, as I said earlier, that cooler heads will prevail, but if the EU wants to administer a kicking, then they will have to accept a bite-back. No final exit payment, no ongoing co-operation over defence, punitive trade tarriffs for their exports and an off-shore Singapore economy to contend with.

[Suff]

WM, I do understand your frustration with this. But you only have to look a the statements coming out of our government today to see what is going on. Our government officials are "furious" that the EU is going to hold all 4M EU citizens hostage to a deal they want. They firmly believe this is the result of a weak bargaining position. I don't believe it is the result of a particularly weak bargaining position, it is a result of frantic attempts to "hold the line" inside the EU to create a single negotiating position.

If the EU could have done any one thing to strengthen May's hand in the election this is it. It makes a mockery of the Labour and Lib Dem position of a unilateral deal on existing EU citizens in the UK and will only harden attitudes of the people of the UK. The EU, once again, completely clueless as to the UK and the people of the UK, the UK, once again, clueless as to how the EU works.

I have always said that walking away is going to be extremely painful in the short term. To me more than 99.9999% (pick your number of 9's) in the UK. But I am willing to bear that pain and work through it. Because it is _only_ in the short term. The UK that emerges from that pain will be stronger, fitter and a much more powerful country; both economically and physically.

I have no illusions, either to the pain we will suffer if we walk away or the pain we will suffer if we do a deal with the EU. I see walking away like physio after a bad injury; whereas I see remaining in the EU as being crippled for life.

Like you WM, I know there are benefits of being in the EU which can give the people of the UK an easier life. Unlike you I firmly believe that the UK would have to lose it's soul and it's character to fully encompass that easier life.

Personally I love the soul and character of the UK and I hate the soulless drab "socialist" container the EU would like to put it into. I will never forget travelling through the Berlin corridor in 1977 or going to East Berlin during that visit. I draw strong parallels with that type of society and the type of society the EU is trying to push on all it's member states.

I could be wrong. But I have too much experience of the EU and how it works for anyone to convince me differently.

Hence my stance. Expect that the EU tries more and more misguided and misjudged attacks on the Tories during this election. The EU is constantly scoring own goals when it deals with the UK, I don't expect that to change.

[Suff]

There are two sides in the negotiations and if one just wants to stick the boot in then it is going to be a hard Brexit whether we like it or not.

This wasn't just a "possibility", this was a foregone conclusion.

It's why I constantly refrain about the needs of 27 as opposed to the needs of 1. We may be warring internally over how Brexit is going to happen, but we are united as one government for the negotiations. May is seeking a mandate from the people to carry out her negotiations but she doesn't really need to, that is just to create an ability to deliver what is negotiated in a reasonable time and to control an unruly Tory party.

The EU, on the other hand, is an unruly cabal of 27 states with governments and elections and populations sitting behind that. Hold Fast has nothing on the EU, their first action was to bind the 27 states into an unbreakable pact which the states could not then interfere from. They are then following the tried and tested (well almost), method of creating unity by giving the UK a kicking. That method suffered really serious cracks under Cameron. Cameron came over to the EU as an entirely reasonable guy who just wanted to avert a disaster. The EU tried to give him a kicking over and over again, resulting in the Referendum and the Bexit vote.

The EU will carry on in this way and it will be half past midnight before the EU27 realise that they have just gone over the cliff and the fall is going to be a nasty one for all concerned.

This is not a prediction, this is inevitable. The EU can't do anything else and survive. The UK _will not_, under it's current leadership, put up with that.

As for Varoufakis and his memoirs? Shortly after Tsipras was driven into the ground, I read an article which dissected and analysed what had gone on. The author of the article stated that Greece had failed before it began because Syriza had campaigned on a platform of keeping the Euro and "saving the EU". The EU was then able to use that position to destroy them. The Author opined that the default position of Greece should have been "We're leaving the Euro but we're willing to listen to anything you have to say which will stop us from leaving". The Author did state that even this might not have worked but that at least Greece would have exited the Euro with head held high and able to fix the mess it was in.

In my opinion the Author was right. It is the only way you negotiate with the EU. As we saw with CETA, the rights of the Belgian government were sacrosanct, until the Canadians took a stand and were willing to walk away. Then Wallonia was crushed.

Britain is not Greece. Truth be told, the UK, alone, could solve the Greek debt problem tomorrow on terms which would allow Greece to grow and repay us in 50 years. We'd get better return on our money and stick one in the eye of the EU. In fact it might not be a bad idea to do that when we leave, with the US, perhaps and exit Greece from the Euro into the bargain...

Anyway, it's clear. No deal is infinitely better than accepting the boot.