EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Agreed.

Kent lorry parks are here to stay even with the deal, next year is going to be a mess with the current deal. Nothing is ready, no financial services passporting included, custom forms galore...

In that sense being reasonable helps the EU because nobody can lay any blame on them. And it's what the UK (England? 43% of voters in 2919? The erg?) wanted so who was the EU to say no?

An 'e'? :)

Edited. Essential point remains however. Why back down when you hold all the cards? And will continue to do so?

The EU doesn't hold all the cards, because of course it doesn't actually want to weaken Europe, which seems to be the job Putin has given to Johnson and co., and because it obviously does trade with the UK. While 'no deal' would be less economic damage for the EU than it would be for the UK, the EU has no interest in damaging the UK economically, which is probably one main reason why the negotiations are so exasperating. You need to be able to negotiate with a party that has a rational self-interest, something that simply doesn't exist in the 'Brexit' universe, it's cutting off your nose to spite your face.

it's cutting off your nose to spite your face.

While the eu ask us to put the knife down, wear a mask or blunt the blade. Though there is the horrible feeling to separate face and nose our leaders want us to dive head first into an industrial shredder.

I ask all the tradesmen who come to my house what they think about Brexit and the general response I get is “I don’t care anymore, let’s just see what happens on the 1st January and deal with it when it comes”.

Not much of a sample but interesting nonetheless.

In a lot of areas no deal is better than a bad deal for the EU. However, no deal is likely to accelerate the breakup of the UK, and having a country descend into chaos that shares a land border with the EU is sub-optimal. France and Ireland are now going to be the external western border- and borders are easier to maintain when there is a degree of cooperation, and stability in the ruling elite.

https://mobile.twitter.com/mdouganlpool?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Michael Dougan still being informative and sassy on Twitter.

Government rules out EU offer to extend trade talks into 2021 so looks like a hard rain is on the way.....

They can’t do that

It’s a kindergarten statement- which everyone will ignore. I suspect it's a reaction to the French essentially saying “let’s let no deal soften the brits up for a bit then return to the table”.

You just know that if No Deal happens, there'll be a Tory chorus of "They gave us no choice".

That's strange, they said they wouldn't extend transition period, nothing about trade talks.

But not sure that T&C's are for this.

Also they are already gaslighting the country in the WA so even if they ought not to do this, not sure if there is a mechanism to stop this.

Perhaps their election manifesto goes against this and this offers a way to stop ending talks but I'm not sure at all.

From guardian

PM drops international law-breaking measures after UK and EU reach deal on Northern Ireland protocol
Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has announced that he and Maroš Šefčovič, the European commission vice president, have reached an agreement in principle on all the outstanding issues relating to the Brexit withdrawal agreement. This means, primarily, the Northern Ireland protocol - the rules governing trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain that will apply from next year under the compromise plan (adopted as an alternative to the backstop) that will leave Northern Ireland in the single market.

Huh so there might be a no deal but this is ringfenced anyway. No details to study out yet...

Exactly - has always been about optics, this just ramps it up further with Johnson likely to claim he had a workable ‘deal’ that the EU walked away from rather than agree at the 11th hour as they wanted to further punish the UK. And there’s a decent number of people who will lap that up as further proof that we are right to walk away and “prosper mightily”

It's optics and brinkmanship on both sides. There's no point getting too worked up over the drips of information being provided. I suspect we're not the audience those pieces of information are being released for. There will be plenty of time for post hoc accusations if that's what it comes to.

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/brexit-boris-johnson-binnenmarkt-europaeische-union-grossbritannien-1.5141232

proof that we are right to walk away

Walk away to what is the question now, the unicorn of a US trade deal is dead in a ditch.

China might want a port in Europe. Could sell them Portsmouth?

they'll be opening up new port markets

All the typical Brexit ‘benefits’ will be back in play....

I'd forgotten that speech. Wish you'd not reminded me.

Wait, I live in Portsmouth, yeah I'm fine with that!

Blue passports, how could I have forgotten!

Could sell them Portsmouth?

Give, surely?