Having said for ages that we'll get a great deal with the EU when we leave (mainly to piss off Remainers), I don't actually think we will do so. Shock horror, but bear with me.
And it doesn't matter all that much anyway. What matters is that we're leaving the EU. It's always been about that - and for me, it's actually a bigger picture thing: I am much more anti-EU than I am pro-Brexit, although Brexit is a very welcome by-product, particularly for the future prosperity of the UK.
Brexit will almost certainly mean the end of the EU project and that's the best news for Europe since VE Day. Because it will allow proud nations like France, Spain, Italy et al to once again be sovereign and stand on their own two feet rather than being taken over by Germany (which is what the EU project has really been about from the start).
I must say that it was absolute genius for Germany to mount its take-over bid so soon after the last unpleasantness and get the rest of Europe to actually pay for that take-over process to happen. Utter genius. But thankfully we have woken up to it just in time. (I think).
Anyway the deal. Two years they say. A decade at least, they say. The basis of our (UK's) deal with the EU will be clear after about an hour of negotiations. Our starting point is that we want free trade on the current basis, we want our fishing grounds back and we want to continue to be good neighbours in terms of security, environment and residents' rights. But the main thing is free trade.
The question is, can you (the EU) accept this or not? If not, (and remember this is a day one question), we walk.
And if they say yes to this, that's great and we then go into the two-year period of 'colouring in' to sort out the details, but the deal has effectively been done on day one.
The reason why this won't happen, why we won't get this 'deal' (which would, by the way, be the best thing for all concerned on both sides), is that we will go in on the basis of wanting a professional, rational and above all fair solution for everyone involved and the EU will not. Because it is not professional or rational; it is a rag-bag of 27 countries all of whom have views and few of whom actually understand the damage that an unfair deal (which causes us to 'walk') will do to their economies. Many have nothing to lose and so very little to gain. Many will delight in being seen as being important on the world stage for the first (and probably last) time.
You see, the thing is, this is not about us trying to sell a deal to 27 disparate (and not a little desperate) members of the EU. That's what the media and Remainers would have you believe. But it simply is not. This is about us making a single, simple offer to the EU about our future relationship. Bearing in mind that we are the EU's biggest customer on the planet. It then becomes the EU's problem to sell that offer to its 27 members. If it can't do that, then it's the EU's problem. Not ours. Because if (I think when) we 'walk' they have a massive problem.
Let me just repeat that for clarity. Selling the deal to the 27 EU member states is an issue for the EU, not the UK. It's up to them to do the deal with their members not us. We are negotiating with the EU. Not each and all 27 members. That's for them to do.
If they can't do this, if a situation of non-agreement does arise then I think German industrialists will call Merkel in for a quiet chat and the problem of the deal may be solved. If you seriously think the Wallooons or some other fucking widget farmers from Slovakia will stop an EU-UK trade deal from happening, then I think you're mad. But, such is the unpredictability and desperation to punish the UK to try to stop other countries from leaving when they see us do well outside the EU, that this could conceivably happen. Particularly given the fact that the Eurocrats have nowhere else to go and have already been seen, time and again, to favour the EU and their solid gold remuneration packages over the countries they're supposed to represent. See Mandelson, Kinnock, Heseltine etc just in the UK.
So, we have three choices: We say to the EU - this is our offer, you sort it out or we walk, and then we leave the negotiations within the 27 EU members to them... or: We walk away from the negotiations with the EU and actually target those countries - Germany, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Poland, the Low Countries, Scandinavia - with whom we do want to trade, on an individual basis, deal by deal and exclude the EU... or: we revert to WTO rules and effectively consign the EU to the history books overnight - because that option will fuck them and empower the UK to trade on its own behalf with the rest of the world.
That's the choice facing the UK and the EU. I know where I'd rather be.
Thanks for reading.
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