Brexit: No 10 startled by EU insistence that UK accept trade terms
Downing Street reacted in dismay as Emmanuel Macron led EU leaders in warning Boris Johnson that he must swallow the bloc’s conditions, in what appeared to be taken as a direct challenge to the British prime minister’s threat to walk out on the talks.
At a summit in Brussels, the EU proposed a further “two to three weeks” of negotiations but Europe’s heads of state and government offered Johnson little succour, demanding that he alone needed to “make the necessary moves to make an agreement possible”.
The intervention was evidently regarded as incendiary in No 10 as Johnson had said he would make a decision on Friday on whether there were grounds to continue the talks. In September, he had said that without agreement by the time of this summit the government would “move on” to focus on no-deal preparations.
This being how negotiations are done.
“Here’s our demands. Obey or no deal!”
“Well, if we could just clarify the details here?”
“Well, OK, we’ll change that little bit. But our demands, Obey!”
Somewhere around the 55th iteration of this the deal is done. Or, not, obviously. But that the “Obey!” bit has been done is about as remarkable as Boris or The Donald chasing totty.
Looks like Boris has just suggested the eu go fuck themselves.
Result!
Seems that von der Leyen is sending the EU negotiators over to London next week anyway. The EU have an amazing ability to ignore information that they don’t like.
This happens every time, yet people who claim to be experts pretend it doesn’t.
“Seems that von der Leyen is sending the EU negotiators over to London next week anyway.”
Arrest them upon arrival. Release them 2 January 2021.
As I, and many others, have been saying for YEARS, these are not negotiations. They are a conference on surrender terms. And being notably so, you could – and should – have left the EU two years ago, at the latest.
So these negotiators are coming to London next week eh?
Two weeks quarantine for them.. its the law isn’t it?
Didn’t Boris say 15th October for a deal, or it’s WTO rules.
Glad to have that sorted out, we can plan for the future now.
So what is M. Macron going to do to enforce French fishermen’s “rights” to 80%, rather than 50%, of the cod? Is the French navy which is singularly inept at arresting people-smugglers suddenly going to find it can arrest British trawlers in British waters?
The EU only ever settles anything in the last five minutes*. Whether negotiations take a year, or five, or twenty, they don’t get resolved until the last five minutes. Therefore there is no need to stretch things out, ten minutes ought to be enough.
* Which anyone claiming specialist knowledge ought to know by now. If they don’t they are not the kind of people anyone should be relying on for information.
The fun will start when Macron starts coming under pressure from French car manufacturers, wine producers and others whose importance to the French economy dwarf their fishery.
Up till now he and his ministers and counterparts elsewhere in the EU have only had to grandstand in support of one industry but now they will have to respond to the interests of other more import players within their economies.
Should be fun – break out the gilets jaunes, call out the CRS.
Still time for a sellout but I dont think so this time.
200,000 London jobs set to go because of the Tiers of a Clown imposition. Johnson simply cannot afford to open a second front against himself by doing a Brexit sellout on top of all the other madness.
I am sure he WOULD have sold us out but as with his bum chum Camoron , the EU gave nothing–not a damn thing. Therefore Johnson has to match his bluster or see the world of trouble he is already in receive a massive boost.
I want to praise here John Galt–who 2+ years ago after Treason May’s announced sell-out—said we would get a WTO Brexit because the EU would give nothing ( alright one or two others also but Mr Galt was the most prominent) and he was spot on.
Love Europeans.
Hate the notion that they should all be the same, living under the same laws, with the same policies and budgets for handing over cash to pre-existing capitalists and land owners. Heck the EU Parliament has even endorsed identical laws on dealing with prostitution for a whole blinking continent of rather varying degrees of perv, wealth, trafficking, religion and attachment to family.
Fuck ’em, vote leave.
Oh, we did. We just haven’t yet. Hold the line Boris. The Europeans are still our friends, so no problem with a little bit more exposure on the cretinism of their leadership.
I noted the vacancy for a Commissioner recently – 27 countries, just one didn’t have one (Ireland), some-one from the country without one got one appointed, what are the odds that was the best person for the job? Quotas eh, utterly corrupting.
Negotiators paid to negotiate.
And their incentive to conclude negotiations is where?