Baldrick Means Baldrick: “I have a cunning plan Mr. B”
Reports from the EU say some of the EU 27 think that the UK has hatched a cunning plan behind the shambles currently afflicting the Government and our UK negotiating team! This helpful little guide was posted by an “anonymous commenter” on twitter and referenced by David Allen Green (@davidallengreen) in the FT and his excellent blog.
Well worth reading and reminding ourselves of the damage the Government is doing as the clock runs down to March 2019.
“Here’s a list of negotiating ploys that the UK has toyed with since the referendum, all of which have failed, either in the sense that they have been discarded or that they have failed to move either Brussels or the 27 other EU member states:
- that feelers or even negotiations could begin prior to Article 50 notification
- that feelers or even negotiations could be opened with individual EU member states, so bypassing or weakening Brussels
- that the UK could divide individual member states to its advantage
- that the UK could cherry pick benefits (floated by Boris Johnson, specifically dismissed with respect to the single market in Mrs May’s Article 50 letter)
- that the UK could brandish effectively a threat to diminish or even to cease security cooperation
- that the UK would owe nothing once it left the EU
- that the UK would be content to crash out of the EU without any agreement whatsoever
- that discussions on the ‘divorce proceedings’ (the Irish land border, post-Brexit citizens’ rights and the divorce bill) could be conducted in parallel with discussions on the future trade relationship
- that the ECJ’s role would, for the UK, cease from 29 March 2019.to which one might add:
- that the EU would be moved by the ‘strong and stable government’ that was to emerge from the June 2017 election.”
This is not even a complete list.
- there was the attempt to deploy the Duchess of Cambridge on a new royal yacht,
- an implicit threat of military action over Gibraltar,
- and the suggestion of making the UK a new low-tax no-regulation Singapore.
And worth adding to this list is their boneheaded response to the voice of manufacturing and unions on the dangers of:
- being outside of the single market, outside of a customs union, no formal access to skills, key EU bodies such as EASA, Medicines and other regulatory bodies plus the uncertainity being caused by confusion and the damage to investment and jobs;
- stunts and foreign trips to pretend the UK can do trade deals with the USA (and Trump), Mexico, New Zealand, Turkey and others to replace an EU trade agreement –
- plus the lack of any discussions or real input by trade unions, who represent millions of members who will suffer from their studpidty.
