Negotiating with the EU

[cromwell]

No planning has ever been done for post Brexit Britain.

I agree with that.

And yes, David Davies has been telling porkies.

What has become blindingly obvious is that our current generation of politicians are utterly useless. After 40 plus years of EU membership they are too scared to leave its apron strings behind.

Unless I have misread things according to the deal announced today we seem to be following all EU rules whilst remaining in the customs union / single market in everything but name and paying a fortune for the privilege. This is not "taking back control". Will we be able to strike trade deals with other countries? It isn't clear. All we are getting is the usual three card trick language of politicians. Will we be under the jurisdiction of the ECHR? Will we be unable to deport terrorists or criminals because of ECHR rulings?

I am getting the feeling that Brexit has been sold down the river; that it has been abandoned because our rulers are too scared to go out into the big world and want to cling on to what they know.

I always feared that we would get the worst of all worlds with Theresa May at the helm, and it looks like we are going to get just that. Big business rules this country; big business never wanted to leave the EU so sod democracy, we are staying in in everything but name. Disgraceful.

[Workingman]

Hellooo Brexiteers,

Fancy a second referendum do you, or maybe you'll teach yourselves Norwegian?

Leave means Leave: my sewage pipe.

EU 3 - 0 UK.

[cromwell]

Well,it may be that I am over reacting. It wouldn't be the first time. The devil will be in the detail as always.

Maybe I should give up on politics, it's certainly not a source of joy.

[Workingman]

Maybe I should give up on politics.

We would all be a lot better off if you stayed and the current bunch of politicians gave up.

The deal, as it stands at the moment, looks like a Soft Fudge Brexit, something nobody voted for. However, the Hard Brexiters of the likes of Mogg-Fox-Johnson are keeping quiet, for now. They could yet throw a spanner in the works.

[Suff]

From what I read, everything is time bound. Even the ECJ rights for EU citizens is time limited to 8 years.

Yes we will remain in the single market for a while, but, I suspect, less time than people are thinking.

Remember, this was ONLY to kick off the trade deal and every single point of it is dependent on a "good" trade deal. Essentially the UK can now spend the next 6 months saying "that's not enough progress on trade and the deal you already have is off the table unless you do".

We got them to back down on €100bn and we were on the hook for £20bn till 2020 anyway. The extra £19bn? It will cover MEP pensions and other costs which we are duty bound to pay. However the EU is going to have to fund the other €50bn of the money they wanted themselves.

The EU wanted lifetime unlimited access to family members of EU citizens already resident in the UK. That has been locked down to 8 years.
The EU wanted the ECJ to oversee all aspects of the UK. That has been locked down to a MAXIMUM of 8 years.

In the end, once we are out, it is a max of a decade and we can walk away and do what we want. Everyone gets a softer landing than Hard Brexit and the EU had to take a 50% cut on the money they wanted.

Is this a bad deal? Well we have to look at the trade side, but, on the face of it? Not bad so far.

As for the fringe shouters about how it's ALL BAD and not what we wanted? We were never going to get what we wanted, especially as half the UK wanted one thing and the other half wanted another. That is what a negotiation is, a coming to an agreement on mutually acceptable terms. That is what we have got so far.

[TheOstrich]

I can live with the £40bn bill - after all, it's only the cost of 7 aircraft carriers - and the Irish border "solution" is just a soundbite at the moment to keep everyone happy - but I'm incensed that the ECJ will still have any form of jurisdiction over the UK for up to 8 years. One of the reasons I voted out was to get us out of all these wretched EU courts including the human rights one.

I fully agree with Crommers' earlier analysis - our politicians have no vision, and our visionaries simply aren't politicians.

If it had been me in charge, it would have been Hard Brexit, yesterday. Having established that, then we could have negotiated with the bleddy EU from a position of certainty and strength, and the devil take the hindmost. With the Republic, we could have offered them an exclusive trade deal and open borders or a 22% tariff under WTO on all their produce - then told them to sort it out with Brussels. Big business, as Crommers observed - and the media - have a great deal to answer for the fact we find ourselves where we are. And I haven't even mentioned Mr Blair ......

[Workingman]

Today we got fudge (cake) to have and to eat.

Leaving aside the spin of politicians and the media it looks as though most people from both the Remain and Leave camps are not happy with what has been done today. For now we have a part-pregnant Brexit where we have left, in name only, and remained, in name only. This goes on till 2021.

We have "solved" the Irish border problem by changing some words in a text, but not altering the actual practicalities of it. We have agreed the Divorce Bill to be between £35-£39bn and paid over four years - we have not saved a single cent because the EU never put a price on it. The €100bn was only ever a number picked from thin air by hardline Brexiters trying to force a no deal scenario. And we solved the FOM problem by letting the ECJ control the rights of EU citizens for eight years. So now we can move on to a trade deal.

Well, no. We now move to Phase II, which will define how the two year transition, sorry, implementation period operates. We will be in the SM and CU meaning we cannot do trade deals with countries who already have them with the EU, though we can negotiate ... we can do that today. We will be subject to any changes made within the EU and still have the same FOM rules. Only when Phase II is sealed can we move on to trade and nobody knows how long it will take.

When it comes to Phase III, the trade negotiations, Barnier wants them over and done with by Oct 2018 so that they can be ratifed by the 27 before March 2019. Then we can really get down to talking trade. Barnier is adamant that the very best deal the UK can get is a Canada style one. We might eventually, sometime in the future, be able to get a bespoke deal for the UK but we will be on WTO rules while we do and it could take forever and a day to sort out.

We might as well go to WTO tonight and stop all the pissing about.

[Workingman]

Now what is Gove up to?

He says the public are "in control" of the Brexit deal. How is that? Well, we can change it at the next general election.

Excuse me, Mr Gove, but the deal will already have been done and "we" can only get to change it if a political party makes such a commitment in its manifesto. Even then we can only change it one way, and do it unilaterally, and that is towards a harder Brexit. If we get a Soft Brexit (May's Mess) and want to make it softer still we would need to get the EU on board - good luck with that.

It's all smoke and mirrors to try to placate Remainers, especially in the Tory ranks, but we are not falling for it. We all know that it is only hardline Brexit MPs who can change the proto deal we currently have.