The UK will get no special treatment in its future economic relationship with the EU, European ministers have said, in a further blow to Keir Starmer’s hopes of negotiating a single market for goods.
You do not, at the beginning of a negotiation, say “We’ll give you lots of prezzies”. Rather, you insist that they are gouged out of you, one by one, during the negotiations.
Obviously.
Surely even lawyers and politicians know this?
But you do leave the back door open.
Starmer is an expert there.
I fleetingly wondered whether he’s a top or a bottom. For about 0.0001 seconds…
Pass the mind-bleach!
Not a negotiating condition, pure vindictiveness. The commission knows we’ll be a problem just like before. Neverjoiners like me should insist on seeing the terms before we have a vote on it. Labour, libdem and green can not be allowed to put rejoin in a manifesto and take that as a mandate to join with no further endorsement by the electorate. Cue years of willwe/wontwe bloody nonsense paralysing the politics of the nation forever. Pretty much like a boot stamping etc etc.
Well yes…. The Bureaucracy having a decent dig at Perceived Indignities against Chairwarmerdom.
In reality the EU doesn’t *want* the UK back, especially under its current Clown Shower.
But it makes sense Keeping the Option Open, exactly because of that paralysing effect..
Ah but it misses our money.
Especially galling for the Jerries who are having to make up for our absence and paupering themselves through deindustrialisation.
No gouging needed when both sides are negotiating on behalf of the enemy. cf Theresa May’s sellout deal “negotiated” by that cunt Olly Robbins.
100%
To a EUrophiliac, the EU is the incarnation of reason and virtue; and this is an article of faith. So the EU’s faults are – to use a phrase from RC apologists – merely “barnacles on the boat of St Peter”.
To the EU fanatics, all the downsides of EU membership are pants-wettingly what they desire. “But it will reduce Westinster to a parish council” THAT’S WHAT WE WANT! “they will abolish the pound” THAT’S WHAT WE WANT! We won’t be able to control our trade or migration. THAT’S WHAT WE WANT!
I cynically see politicians cozying up to the EU as hoping to secure a prestigious position in the bureaucracy post General Election. Very handy for those suddenly finding themselves unemployed.
I wish I could share your optimism about a GE, I think COVID proved they can get away with almost anything…
And doubtless British negotiators have made it clear to the EU blokes that the EU will not get special treatment.
Stop laughing at the back.
The EU is a useless wanker politicians paradise. A democracy in the mould of the German Democratic Republic, as was. The Stasi are in place and the Parliament set up as a fig leaf to show how democratic the UWPs are. They choose which one of them has what chairs and start the music. The end. The only funny bit would be if Ursula turns out to have sensauma like Hennig and David Lammy becomes Chief Commissioner instead of MTK…
Desperately hoping that the EUSSR collapses before the traitors can get us back in.
We can but hope. But even if it becomes clear to everyone that the EU isn’t working well as a bloc, politically or economically, nobody is showing any signs of willingness to pull the plug just yet. Even politicians who used to be radically anti-EU seem to have been tamed. The short term costs of unwinding everything, especially the euro, appear to have achieved long term lock-in towards stagnation…
There’s no pulling the plug yet, yes…
Mostly because the anti-EU/EU-critical forces within Europe still attempt to change the EU by dialling things back, more or less gently, and severely limiting the power of the Commisars.
Pulling the plug creates its own problems. Quite severe ones that *currently* outweigh the annoyance of the festering sore that’s the EU Bureaucracy.
Reality isn’t always nice… And this is one of those cases… Unless there’s decent support, and a decent idea, for lancing that boil… It’s a tough cookie…
There are definitely some respects where the EU would work better if it were more centralised though. Currency union without fiscal union is an accident waiting to happen for example. Just slowing down the Commission’s ratchet effect power-grab isn’t a solution in its own right. Getting stuck in a stagnant state feels like the worst of all worlds – a “strong” Europe would have a lot going for it that a “divided” Europe doesn’t, as the federalists point out, but there are a lot of broken things in Brussels, Frankfurt, Kirchberg etc which really need blowing up.
Currency union without fiscal union is an accident waiting to happen for example.
Preach it, brother! But Germany will never agree (and their constitution forbids it)..
How will it be a blow, since his reasons for rejoining aren’t predicated on that!
Surely even lawyers and politicians know this?
ours dont. kneeler is what we used to call a “leaves his pants at the door on the way in negotiator.” the other lot were just as bad