-
The reason I regard it as political theatre is that quite often the UK government position has been along the line of "WE DEMAND ACCESS TO THE SINGLE MARKET WITHOUT PAYING CONTRIBUTIONS" knowing that the EU will not entertain this.
I don't know why this wasn't blindingly obvious to everyone from the very beginning. If the EU don't do a deal with the UK it might be financially damaging for them. If they concede to the UK's demand for full single-market access with no associated costs or responsibilities then it is potentially existentially damaging for them, since they would have just demonstrated that there is no (or massively reduced) point to being in the EU. Whatever you think about the EU, they do seem fairly logical and, as such, would never trade a financial problem for an existential one.
ffm-
I don't know why this wasn't blindingly obvious to everyone from the very beginning. If the EU don't do a deal with the UK it might be financially damaging for them. If they concede to the UK's demand for full single-market access with no associated costs or responsibilities then it is potentially existentially damaging for them, since they would have just demonstrated that there is no (or massively reduced) point to being in the EU. Whatever you think about the EU, they do seem fairly logical and, as such, would never trade a financial problem for an existential one.
Well summarised. One thing that I noticed was that international news agencies discussed this a lot in 2015 from CNN to Fox and beyond but I only ever saw it being discussed in the FT and Guardian in the UK.
Stonehedge
The reason I regard it as political theatre is that quite often the UK government position has been along the line of "WE DEMAND ACCESS TO THE SINGLE MARKET WITHOUT PAYING CONTRIBUTIONS" knowing that the EU will not entertain this.
Requesting stuff that you know isn't possible and then blaming the other side for saying no is political theater in my book. Requesting access to the single market for reduced contributions and throwing something else into the offer would be a good faith negotiation.
This we totally agree on. The moment I realised that we were proper fucked was when Theresa May stood up in Lancaster House and promised to deliver a bunch of stuff that had already been ruled out.