Monday, May 1, 2017

The EU Launches Its Attack on Theresa May and Brexit

Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker
UK Prime Minister Theresa May met recently with her counterpart in the EU to discuss Brexit.

She apparently wants to do a generally sound thing and make the Brexit cut simple and fast. It's not perfect, still too much negotiation, but it avoids a lot of complexity that will only lead to crony deals.

But the other EU members want no such simplicity. They want a "complex" break. Translation: A crony negotiated break that will tie the UK up in all kinds of EU red tape.

In an effort to derail May's simple and fast break plan, EU members are leaking the absurd claim that May has no plan.

Consider this report in today's Financial Times:
Theresa May’s critics have attacked the British prime minister for having “no plan” over Brexit in the wake of a leaked account of a private dinner that heightened tensions between Brussels and London.

A report published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung portrayed last Wednesday’s dinner between Mrs May and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker as a disaster.

According to the FAZ, commission officials were astonished at Mrs May’s ambitions for the talks, including rapid resolution of the status of expatriates, a confidential negotiating process and a trade deal within two years.

The article quotes Mr Juncker as saying that he left the dinner “10 times more sceptical than I was before”. He told Angela Merkel, German chancellor, of his concerns in an early morning phone call the next day.
 But the EU attack could backfire and result in
May ditching all negotiations and simply breaking with the EU. FT again:
[T]he comprehensive leaking of the talks will strengthen the hand of Eurosceptics in Mrs May’s own party who believe the Brexit negotiations cannot succeed and that Britain would be better to make a clean break with the EU.

“This is the reason why some people are saying it will be impossible to reach a deal, because it doesn’t matter which party is in the wrong galaxy, if they are in separate galaxies it is going to be very difficult,” said Bernard Jenkin, a leading Conservative Eurosceptic MP.

A spokesman for the UK Independence party added that the account of the EU’s attempt to “bully” the UK showed the “mutual incomprehension” between the two sides. “We believe no deal is better than a bad deal, the offers on the table are bad deals and so better that we go for a quick, clean break and get on with our lives,” he said.
-RW 

1 comment:

  1. this is assuming the UK government actually wants to leave.

    ReplyDelete