So France and Germany have shut down Theresa May's idea of a transition. Barnier stated before the Florence speech that the options were remaining in the EU for longer than the Article 50 period while we worked out what we wanted, then having transition to that new agreement, or a transition when an agreement has already been achieved. What was not on the table was what Theresa May asked for - leaving the EU in March 2019 and keeping the beneficial parts without some of the obligations in return for money.
https://www.ft.com/content/9229c870-...5-648314d2c72c
This puts at an end the idea that we can buy concessions. The other two of the big 3 economies basically just told us that the sequencing of talks isn't negotiable - financial and other arrangements first then discussion on future relationship, including transition. May and others' hopes of going directly to EU nations just went up in flames - they're more hawkish on us than the EU institutions.
As a reminder to those like Dan Hannan who think fawning over the Anglosphere will achieve anything the United States have reminded us that it's America First, not as collateral damage to a trade dispute between them and Canada but directly.
https://www.ft.com/content/92bb5636-...5-27219df83c97
The good news of course for some here is that the odds of the UK falling out of the EU without a deal just went up. The bad news for everyone else and, if they ever wake up from their delusion, them, is that sovereignty won't compensate for the economic hit. A wide range figure on the hit of 'no deal' puts it at £40-80 billion a year, with the type of Brexit that would make Jacob Rees-Mogg cry over his shrine to the British Empire and spouting nonsense in the Commons in Latin costing £10-40 billion.
We as a nation have made a complete and utter <expletive> up of this. We went into a negotiation with no realistic idea of what we wanted, just a bunch of vague and unrealistic aspirations.
Article 50 shouldn't have been triggered until at least the Government had some clue what they wanted at the end of the two years; further time was wasted with an unnecessary election and yet more time after that vote as various Tories consider their Machiavellian masterplans.
Tories can't even agree on what's going on. Nadine Dorres reckons toppling Theresa May is a remainers plot, in total ignorance of that the Conservative Party membership's demographics are such that they are likely to go with the hardest and most delusional Brexiteer on offer.
I said a while ago that the UK should never have joined the EU, we weren't a great fit, and should've stayed in EFTA and the EEA. I still hold to that, however given the fantastic job we're making of leaving the EU I think I would be far more comfortable with abandoning this whole thing until we get our act together at home.
No-one considered the EU that much of a priority besides some members of the Conservative Party in 2014, it's now a bitterly divisive issue that's dominated UK politics for over a year, opened up wounds in the Conservative Party even wider, and empowered that champion of democracy Aaron Banks and his crew of propagandists that make Breitbart look like a serious, sober broadsheet.
I haven't a clue what the solutions are. By gearing a year of politicking towards the more extreme end of the debate the Conservatives have excluded a bunch of reasonable positions that would've been able to command majority support from the UK.
By behaving like Goebbels for a year they've taken a debate that was already of a pretty low standard and ensured it's subterranean and dominated by the self-interested in the Conservative Party and various people following the Trump model - spout a load of bovine excreta and attack your detractors if they call you on it. Is it any wonder the country can't get on board with the whole thing when views are this extreme?
The following from YouGov flows smoothly into that even though it makes little sense given Corbyn is as Brexit horny as many Tories, just for different reasons as much as it prevents them shredding social and other protections it prevents him nationalising everything.
Some of the poor and working classes complained that no-one was listening to them, felt left behind, then say they are fine with being made poorer if it means they get their way. Some of the elderly complain about the country going to the dogs then say they are fine degrading it further by making us poorer. I appreciate that things were harder in their day but aren't people supposed to want better for the next generation rather than not caring less about it as long as they get their way because they're always right?
If this is accurate the attitude of the 61% is alarming, and comprehensively puts paid to the idea they were voting for the good of the country or at very least the concept of empathy for those not closely connected to them. The attitude of the 39% fine even if their vote impacted them or those close to them downright bizarre. I can't fathom the motivations of someone who votes to leave something they don't understand, hardly anyone does, for reasons they can't elucidate, just listen to callers to James O'Brien on LBC failing to do so, and claims to be fine with them or someone close to them becoming unemployed as a result.
It puts into sharp focus the stubborn refusal of many, on both sides of the debate, to even contemplate the idea that they may be wrong. I have no idea when we became so hubristic or indeed if we were always this way.
The history books are going to have a lot of fun with this.