E.U: Leave or Stay? Your thoughts.

Yesterday I would have disagreed with you, but now I'm not so sure...

 

If article 50 isn't triggered before the end of May 2017 the chances of it ever getting triggered drop significantly IMO, given the two year time frame for negotiations and the GE in 2020 leaving it any later risks another government backing out or any number of other things.

 

I'm still waiting for the Brexiteers to realise that the UK cannot simply default to WTO rules. Liam Fox in particular is going to be caught with his pants down (hopefully not literally). I think he won't last the year.

 

You forgot the EU Elections in 2019... and before then the French Presidential and German Federal elections in 2017, Pepe Le Pen's mob or the AfD numpties get any meaningful power and you could be looking at a very messy mess...

 

I find it difficult to believe that people who have access to the type of civil servants that should have a good idea on all of this have no idea what shifting to WTO means. People's beliefs and understanding are surely quite different from their public statemeants if they are a politician.

 

You'd think, right? But so far nothing in the Brexiteers' behaviour (rather than their statements) suggests that they really know what they are doing.

 

Well that's what I'm saying. Their public statements are not reflective of what they actually know. They are constrained for political reasons. He's never going say we're all ****ed or whatever.

 

No, but you'd expect some strategic thinking. For David Davis to refer to Guy Verhofstadt as "Satan" seems contradictory to wishing to pursue constructive negotiations.

 

You would but I'm not giving them that much credit either. Sounds like posturing to set up for finger pointing later on down the line to me.

 

Plausible. One interpretation would suggest that David Davis expects the negotiations to fail and for Britain to make a 'hard Brexit' (whereas Farage is deliberately sabotaging through his behaviour to make it happen), which would be embarrassing after all his big talk about how he is going to negotiate a good deal. He'd need to be able to blame the EU.

But then I would then expect him to work hard on drawing up a tariff schedule. He could always use it as a show of strength: it would strengthen the bargaining position to show you're prepared to walk away from the table.

So either he doesn't realise the importance of this, or he doesn't expect to go that far and instead kick Brexit into the long grass while blaming the EU loudly for causing delays. After all van Rompuy is already providing a plausible excuse.

 

If you plan on weaselling out of responsibility (as politicians like to do), putting your fall guys in place makes sense even if you believe you will be successful. That's just sensible planning.

Regardless, all I'm saying is what they know and what they say are likely to be different.

 

Makes sense --if you fail you have a scapegoat; if you succeed it makes you look even better. On the other hand, insulting your scapegoat when you depend on his cooperation may reduce your chances of success. So either he is very confident that he will succeed regardless, or more likely he has already figured out he is going to fail anyway.

I think that David Davis is figuring it quite likely that the UK will end up in the WTO, but he just hasn't realised about the tariff schedule yet. He'd have someone working on it already otherwise, and given the significance of that it would have been leaked.

 

If there's something you know from reading random websites and newspapers, you can be guaranteed a man who is looking at this every working day as sectary of brexit and who has the resources of an entire government at his disposal knows it as well.

They are currently figuring a lot of stuff out and you are likely to see bravado and scapegoating right up until the point the reality has to be made public which will then switch to just scapegoating. Until then what you are allowed to see and what they say does not necessarily reflect the reality of the situation.

 

The problem with that is what they say has real world implications, take Farage and his unique approach to diplomacy, while a great deal of what he says is probably for show it doesn't exactly win friends and influence people, at least not in a good way.

 

There's no denying that. What they are saying can be damaging or tactical or beneficial or anything else. Either way, they are just spinning what is going on behind the scenes. To me that seems like what they would do, given that they are politicians in a difficult situation from which they can't back down and as of right now are very unsure of. They have to treat it both from a pragmatic point of view and a political point of view. The priority will be the political view because that's what keeps them in the job and that's what you'll see. The pragmatic view will just emerge of its own accord eventually.

 

You have more faith in politicians than i do.
Our last two elected PM's have been anything but pragmatic in my books.

 

Normally I would agree with you, but based on what has happened since the referendum I'm not so sure anymore about the pragmatic bit. I read a strong sense of either public facing avoidance or internal denial --which is easy when you have so many different issues to distract you.

EDIT: meanwhile Switzerland is starting to concede on free movement to remain in the EFTA.

 

Greetings!

That may work for domestic consumption. From the outside, you (UK) made the mess, even after geting favourable deals to stay.

 

Well yes, but since when has the UK electorate ever seen things from the European perspective?

 

Ok what I meant by pragmatic was cold hard reality and not some wishy washy poltical rhetoric. Like actual numbers, timeliness and real plans. If you are to leave that stuff will come eventually. That doesn't necessarily mean it will be coherent or good or well laid out or well thought out though. Perhaps I should have said tangible instead of pragmatic.