Is it too late for common sense to prevail?
It think it fitting that I should apologise at the outset for returning to the vexed issue of Brexit – especially when (apart from those who are rabid Leavers or Remainers) about 90% of the people I know or come across to talk to are thoroughly fed up with even the sound of the word, let alone the prospect of having to discuss its eventual outcome or even the process via which the UK’s ship of state will set off down the slipway into the Future.
Overnight I read in the columns (or rather ‘web-pages’) of The Independent that – having originally agreed a two-year transition period effectively in return for paying £39 billion fee in consideration – the UK Government has just put in a request to the EU to change the deal to one in which the transition period should not be limited to two years but … er …. ‘take as long as it takes’.
Apparently – in response – that is, when they had managed to stop wetting themselves with mocking laughter and derision at the alleged ‘ongoing muddle and sheer incompetence’ of the Prime Minister and her negotiating team, the EU bureaucrats and senior politicians with an insider’s appreciation of what is going on have been putting it about that the UK has still no clear idea of what sort of Brexit it wants.
See here for the relevant links to the Indie’s reports upon the latest UK initiative – UK ASKS FOR OPEN-ENDED TRANSITION – and the EU view of the performance of the UK Government so far – EU REACTION.
When it comes to the outcome of the Brexit, and indeed any, negotiations – I’m going back to basics here – at one end of the spectrum you have those who take the view (as a general principle) that “You cannot go into any negotiation without having a series of positions upon which you have established ‘red lines’ and also have clear in your mind the situation in which you’d be prepared to use the ultimate sanction of walking away if you don’t get what you want …. or indeed are perhaps informed by the other side that either there’s zero chance of getting it or indeed that they intend to drive a ‘coach & horses’ through your red lines and won’t accept anything less than your unconditional surrender”.
At the other end of it (the spectrum, I mean), there are the group who would take the line “Look in any case – and say, for the sake of this example that Brexit is one of them – where the issues involved are perceived to be so important upon so many levels that failure (to come to an agreement) would be so catastrophic as to amount to a total disaster for all parties involved, you’ve got to go in prepared to concede any point, pay any price, accept any restriction and/or future/ongoing obligation in order to reach an agreement. Why? Because ‘no agreement’ is far worse an outcome than ending with a bad one, or (at best) a middling, let alone a good, one …”.
It’s all very easy for anyone like me to sit in the corner of my local pub after four pints of real ale to see things with blinding clarity, but I’m rapidly coming to the view that the UK should have announced that – on the second anniversary of any referendum decision to depart the EU – the UK will do so. And leave it at that.
In other words, unless in the meantime those responsible on both sides for dealing with such things come up with an alternative solution.
It’s all very well for the EU to take the attitude “Come on UK, you have to bring forward a version of a deal that we’ll automatically find acceptable … or else there won’t be one” because, of course, in both theory and practice they can keep saying “Not acceptable” until the cows come home. And then keep blaming the UK for the failure. Especially when they don’t really want the UK to go anyway.
My point is that – the way things are going – nobody is going to end up with a win.
Especially someone like me, who only voted for Brexit because it seemed the best route to getting what I actually wanted, which was to get rid of the cancer that is a Scotland which remains in the UK.
