Quote (Black XistenZ @ Oct 24 2020 02:17pm)
Signs are pointing to a Hard Brexit atm. Would definitely be interesting to see if the dire predictions for this scenario turn out to be true, or overblowm.
I disagree. A deal has been very close for a while and further talks are taking place at the moment.
Quote (Djunior @ Oct 24 2020 02:39pm)
Definitely interesting yes, however if I'd be EU's chief negotiator I'd be working towards a deal with the British instead of putting my fist on the table. I honestly feel the EU is asking too much like continued access to the UK's fishing waters and the Northern Ireland border issue
That's because they are asking for too much.
They are fishing in our waters and have very large quotas, there is no reason for that to continue. The talk is that EU member states were willing to concede to the UK on this but France pushed against it quite hard.
Quote (fender @ Oct 25 2020 05:20pm)
it's just amazing to see how conservatives somehow arrived at the conclusion that it's the EU that isn't interested in a post brexit deal, and that the UK government had a reasonable plan that was rejected out of spite - because that isn't even remotely close to the truth.
there are some core issues that the EU insists on (things we discussed ad nauseam in various brexit threads), and they have been clear from day one - it was the other side that ignored those for the longest time, internally discussed and sought political majorities for proposals everybody knew would be rejected by the EU negotiators. they wasted time for political reasons, tried to domestically consolidate power with promises they knew were empty, and now they publicly cry about the EU maintaining its position, trying to pass the buck. that's just dishonest.
of course the EU has to insist on its core demands, otherwise every member could just leave and pick the cherries while ignoring the commitments - which is basically what the UK tried to do for decades and STILL does. the UK had several different options: a deal like norway has with the EU, the swiss model, the singapore model, or no deal (meaning WTO rules) - none of those are "economic blackmailing", or whatever dishonest people want to call it. the only thing that was off the table (again, from day one, and understandably so) was free access to the single market without contributing to the EU budget and guaranteeing free movement.
While the UK has attempted to negotiate terms that would infringe key principles of the EU, is it really an unreasonable negotiating position to start with and subsequently climb down from in order to secure a better deal?
That being said, I don't think it was a deliberate negotiating tool at all, nor was it a deceitful power grab by the British. It was symptomatic of the vague referendum posed to the public and the resultant political instability that spawned factions seeking different outcomes from Brexit that were unrealistic and couldn't be reconciled. Early negotiating positions of wanting full control over immigration AND safeguarding the free movement of goods were May's botched attempts at appeasing the ERG while getting a deal that wouldn't significantly reduce GDP over the long term.
The most important point here is that the EU's core demands have been satisfied and the trade deal has been practically agreed apart from two minor points: fishing and state subsidies. The EU need to budge on fishing considering the very generous arrangement they have, and we need to budge on state subsidies (not that we ever really used them anyway).
This post was edited by dro94 on Oct 27 2020 11:49am