Negotiating Brexit

I think Britain needs to play a long and very patient game when it comes to negotiating Brexit.

We need to stay friends and trading partners with the other countries of Europe, including those who are EU members and those who are not. That will require us to take a negotiating stance which is firm but not hostile and constructive without being weak.

We will not get everything we want but we must negotiate hard for as much as possible.

France and Germany are under great pressure at the moment because of imminent elections in both countries next year and the impact of terrorism and migration issues. It may be that the best way to get a constructive negotiation is to trigger article 50 straight after the German elections.

If we do that, it is important to explain in advance to the French and Germans that the reason for that timetable is to help them as well as to help Britain.

According to the Telegraph today some elements in the EU want to take a tough line in the Brexit negotiations because they believe Britain will abandon Brexit if negotiations go badly enough.

If that is an accurate report of their views - and it is certainly true that some Eurocrats want to take a very hard line with the UK as they want Brexit to fail so there are no imitators - anyone who thinks Britain is going to change course now is delusional. We didn't all vote for this course of action - I was one of those who didn't - but a majority did, and a majority even among those of us who voted Remain think the worst thing we could do now is dither about whether to go ahead and respect their wishes or not.

We need to be calm and dignified - the UKIP twerps who shouted "Judas" at Britain's last EU commissioner for taking up the office gave a classic example of how not to behave. (Britain needs someone in that post speaking up for us for the remainder of the time before we leave.) And when we are put under pressure - which we will be - we must stand up to it.

Theresa May had a reputation as a tough negotiator within the coalition government, but also for keeping her bargains once she made them: that's what Nick Clegg said anyway that getting agreement with her was hard work but she would keep her word.

I believe him, and I certainly hope he was right because that approach is exactly what we will need now in our approach to the EU.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more