Brexit, the economy and house prices part 5

Ballard

wunferall wrote: »

And yet you think Trump unique amongst presidents for what you consider as "lying and bullying"?
:rotfl:

Point to where I said that he was unique in exhibiting those characteristics.

I specifically commented on him in relation to a specific suggestion by another poster that the UK would not have steel tariffs raised.

I’m not going to add any emojis because I’m an adult.

Filo25

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Do you seriously believe that the "EU" wants a hard Brexit. Brussels might wish to punish the UK. Once reality sinks in across Europe after the event. There'll be major rumblings of discontent. Enough disagreement on major issues as it is.

The EU doesn't "want" Brexit at all, that is our decision, we still seem to be at the stage however of wanting a lot of the benefits of the EU without meeting the associated obligations, likewise many on here seem to think we deserve a special deal from the EU because we are the UK, there are lots of models out there for third party deals with the EU, our eventual deal is likely to look similar to one of them.

Not that I have any idea how the government tends to resolve the Ireland border issue, which they committed to solving last year.

Herzlos

May's red lines mean the only 3 options we have are: Canada, South Korea (I think), and WTO.

They drew us a little chart 2 years ago, nothing has changed.

Graham_Devon

Zero_Gravitas wrote: »

That!!!8217;s the other thing about negotiation: it!!!8217;s not mandatory to tell the other side what your desired outcome is at any point - even after the negotiation is over...

I have no idea what the EU!!!8217;s desired outcome is - all we can see at the moment is that as the negotiation progresses the EU don!!!8217;t find it necessary to make any significant concessions or offers to achieve that outcome. This may change of course - but that!!!8217;s where we are at the moment, and the EU has the upper hand.

Yet your biggest complaint is that the UK doesn't state it's direction?

It's an appalling mess if we don't hand the "other side" everything on a plate - but a fantastic negotiation process if your favoured side use the same tactic?

cogito

The point has to come where the UK realises that they are giving everything (e.g. !!!8364;39bn to name but one) and getting nothing in return. In that case, the only option is to say thanks but no thanks.

Thrugelmir

Zero_Gravitas wrote: »

I have no idea what the EU!!!8217;s desired outcome is

Then the intransigence may reflect the differing views within the EU. Barnier has no clear mandate nor ability nor authority to speak on every parties behalf.

fewgroats

"A fantastic negotiation process."

That would make both sides fantastic. No one's saying that.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Herzlos wrote: »

May's red lines mean the only 3 options we have are: Canada, South Korea (I think), and WTO.

Which is why May's 'red lines' will shortly evaporate as reality sets in.

They drew us a little chart 2 years ago, nothing has changed.

Exactly.

There can be no 'Europe a la carte'.

No 'have cake and eat it'.

This was made abundantly clear in advance of the referendum.

The EU are being consistent and responsible - they will not sacrifice the integrity of the single market for an ungrateful UK.

If we want the benefits of frictionless trade we must follow the rules - same as anyone else - anything else would be hugely unfair to the other participants.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

It's an appalling mess if we don't hand the "other side" everything on a plate - but a fantastic negotiation process if your favoured side use the same tactic?

You seem to be missing the point here Graham.

There is little to negotiate.

We really just have to make a choice.

The EU has clearly laid out the main options for a future relationship and let us know they're happy for us to pick whichever one we want.

- If we want all the benefits of frictionless trade and full access we can join the EEA or EFTA, a la Switzerland or Norway.

- If we want a much, much worse deal and dramatically worse access than we have today we can have a Canadian style FTA.

- And if we want to drive ourselves off a cliff we can have no deal and revert to WTO terms.

The final deal we get will pretty closely resemble one or the other of these choices - perhaps called something different for public consumption, or with a few minor face-saving tweaks...

But the last two years have been completely wasted as the UK govt is doing nothing other than negotiating badly with itself until it picks one of the above choices.

Herzlos

The EU are giving nothing away, because they've been consistent on a stance and have had no reason to change.

The UK are giving nothing away because after 2 years they don't have a stance. You must be able to appreciate the differences?

For 2 years the EU has been asking the UK to give them something to respond to.