Mixed messages.

[Workingman]

That's all very well, and all very straw man, but yesterday you said:

The plan was to negotiate an exit with the EU. That was always the plan, has always been the plan and is still the plan.

Leave proclaiming that it was possible for the UK to come to an agreement with the EU is not a plan, it is a statement of what was hoped could be achieved. Negotiation of itself is not a plan, there has to be something being negotiated towards: an end game.

So you must have details of that plan - the Leave plan.

Who formulated it, and was it ever published? Was it the same plan that was supposedly being negotiated by David Davis, Dominic Raab and Stephen Barclay and DExEU or was it May's plan? Or was is some other plan?

The problem for Leave, and thus the country, it that there never was one "end game" to negotiate to. There was Norway or Canada +++ or the Swiss model, or even no-deal, and not one of them could command an agreement all Leavers could live with. So from that we got the blaming of Reminers and the "Will of the people" nonsense.

If the negotiations were to be for the "Will of the people" then one of the many Leave "plans" would have had to have gained 16,141,242 votes. That is the Remain vote +1. If that number could not be achieved then the true "Will of the people" is to Remain.

[Suff]

It takes two to negotiate. If you turn up with a document, detailed to the nth degree, then demand the other party signs on the dotted line, then you do not have a negotiation.

You think that 600 odd page document the EU demands the UK sign up to was developed as a "negotiation" with the UK? No it was the EU plan and it is being put in practise. That is the EU PLAN.

Just tell me, truly, just how well you think that plan is panning out for the EU right now? In fact, Nobody and I do mean NOBODY wants it. Not either party. It is everything the EU wants and nothing the UK wants but might be something the UK might be willing to put up with for a year or two.

You keep demanding a plan in detail. So tell me, what was the plan for any of the intra nation negotiations around the world? Middle east? SALT? All the trade deals that have happened?

Did they all have a master plan which was shown up front for everyone to vote on? No of course they were not. They were the best compromise that anyone could finally walk away from the table with. Nobody was happy with them. BUT. It was something everyone could live with, like it or not.

There were goals and targets. That is how you start a negotiation. What you end a negotiation with is an agreement and an implementation PLAN.

Demanding a plan up front is cart before the horse. Just ask the EU. Just because it has worked with them before does not mean it will always work. The UK is, in turn, one of the largest economies and military powers in the world and, by implication, one of the most difficult to browbeat into what you want.

I'm sure that Barnier would tell you, if you asked him in April, just how well the EU PLAN worked for them. Because, right now, it's a large pile of dung with an explosive in it and the fuse if burning and it is right in their faces.